JESSICA ILLSLEY EXHIBITION - Something Like Hunger 10.29 - 11.06

Jessica Illsley explores instinct, desire and impermanence in new New York solo exhibition

British artist Jessica Illsley will present Something Like Hunger, a new solo exhibition exploring impermanence, instinct and desire, alongside the shifting relationship between our inner and outer worlds, at Gallery Chez STADM in New York from 29 October to 6 November 2026. Bringing together 10 works, the exhibition explores a reality which is unstable and permeable, where the physical mixes with intuition, memory, desire and the subconscious.

Jessica said, “Previously, my work focused on my own relationship to spirituality, fragility and the unknown. During my residency in Mexico, it began to shift outward towards the invisible exchanges that exist between people and the way encounters, environments and choices can alter our internal realities. Ideas around mythology, transformation, the natural world and the animal self began to surface in these paintings.” She continued, “I keep returning to the tension between the civilised and the instinctive, control and surrender, beauty and violence. A sense of hunger runs through the pieces, whether for another person, for freedom, for experience or simply to feel something fully. Alongside that is an awareness of impermanence and the impossibility of holding onto a body, relationship, memory or moment without it changing.”

These ideas extend beyond the paintings into black and white photography and automatic writing. The photographs allow bodies, landscapes and familiar spaces to become ambiguous and ghostlike, while the writing is approached intuitively and unconsciously. Images of time, hunger, fire, nature, ego, sleep and awakening repeatedly surface, often forming unexpected parallels with the paintings.

Together, the works occupy a space between the physical and the unseen, where inner and outer worlds overlap and boundaries become increasingly difficult to define.

Something Like Hunger opens on 29 October 2026 and will run until 6 November 2026 at Gallery Chez STADM 142 W 95th Street, New York, NY 10025.