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CURRENT WORK AVAILABLE

None at this time

PROJECTS

Hopewell Bake Exchange

Jesse and James designed the small Paris, KY Bakery on a minimal budget. Their primary focus was three fold, how to warm up the space, make it cohesive, and create a...

Robertas - Los Angeles

Infamous Brooklyn based Pizza restaurant Robertas tagged Studio Jesse James to design their second restaurant located in Culver City, CA

Hayden Cafe - Culver City

Hayden Restaurant approached Studio Jesse James to design their flagship cafe. The main design focal point being around the wine.

Mainland Poke

Jesse re-designed the Mainland Poke brand with three new restaurant spaces in Los Angeles.

Jesse Voigt has been painting under the artist moniker Essi Zimm since 2009.

“Pay heed to the tales of old wives. It may well be that they alone keep in memory what it was once needful for the wise to know.” – J.R.R. Tolkien

My biological father, a religious fanatic, claimed to know the truth. A woman’s value could be precisely calculated according to metrics of surface: dress, speech, piety, observance. My mother, a free spirited German, claimed her own truth. Beyond surface, there were things that dictated an individual’s fate: signs, symbols, curses, miracles. Being raised in a bookstore, I was imbued with many truths from the local UFO hunters, the psychics, the paranoid philosophers, the zealots, the hippies, all fervently declaring the objective truth to be found in their recommended codexes. These books were the saving graces of my childhood. With no other children around, I befriended the books and they became a catalyst to how I related to everything and everyone. They became my myriad of axioms.

Folklore is the human attempt to pass on these truths. Henry Glassie said it best, “it stresses the interdependence of the personal, the social; the aesthetic, the ethical, the cosmological; the beautiful, the good, the true. Practically, folklore is the study of human creativity in its own context”

 My art can be summed up as confessions of paper, a way to visually communicate truths, accessing the space occupied by folklore. Paper conceals and communicates meaning, and can be destroyed and overlaid in various modes. I begin a piece by abstractly representing an image in paint, which I then cover with paper: scraps found, created from pulp, or hand illustrated. I then peel away the paper, leaving a construction bearing a nonlinear but viscerally personal connection to its origin. The accumulated papers mimic the debris that sticks to memories; it mirrors waking life’s uncanny transfiguration in our dreams. Where realism trusts only what can be tested and seen, folklore presents a world vibrating with meaning, a morally charged and heavily fated universe that rejects logic in favor of the non-linear.

ESSI ZIMM RESUME

EXPERIENCE:

+ 2016- Current Studio Jesse James Architects, Inc / Lexington, KY / Owner

+ Jun 2010-2016 Abramson Teiger Architects/ Culver City, CA/ Project Designer

+ Nov 2006-Nov 2008 Gehry Partners LLP/ Los Angeles, CA/ Junior Designer

EDUCATION:

+ 1997-2000 University of Colorado/ Boulder, CO/ Bachelor of Environmental Design

+ 2001-2003 Savannah College of Art and Design/ Savannah, GA/ Master of Architecture, Excelsus Laureate, Tau Sigma Delta

SOLO EXHIBITIONS:

+ Gabba Gallery Solo Show "H is for Honey", March 2021

+ Gabba Gallery Solo Show "Entomophily", March 2018

+Gabba Gallery Solo Show "Happenstance", March 2017

+ Gabba Gallery Solo Show "In the Wake of the Yokai", March 2016

+ Prohibition Gallery Solo Show “The End is Nigh”, Sep 2015

+ Gabba Gallery Mini Solo Show "Nacht", June 2015

+ Prohibition Gallery Solo Show “Upon the Sleeve”, Feb 2014

GROUP EXHIBITIONS:

+ Prohibition Gallery "Telephone Game", April 2015

+ Gabba Gallery “Permanent Collection" Artist, Jan 2015

+ Gabba Gallery “Kool-layed" Group Show, Jan 2015

+ Zask Gallery “Fresh 214"  Group Show, Dec 2014. Curator: Mat Gleason.

+ “Mas Attack 7” Santa Monica Hangers Group Show, Dec 2014

+ Gabba Gallery “Wish List" Group Show, Dec 2014

+ Gabba Gallery “Bright Ideas" Group Show, April 2014

+ LA Times Festival of Books "Inspire Your Fire" Live Painting, April 2014 

+ Gabba Gallery “Face it" Group Show, Mar 2014

+ Hudson/Linc “One for the Road” Group Show, Jan 2014

+ Gabba Gallery “Platforms and Paint” Group Show, Jan 2014

+ George Billis Los Angeles Holiday Group Show. Nov 2013

+ “Mas Attack 3” Torrance Art Museum Group Show, Oct 2013

+ Two Person Show @ Hale Arts Space in Santa Monica, Aug 2012

+"Made in California" City of Brea Art Gallery's 27th Annual Juried Exhibition; Mar 2012

+"Ten On 25" Pop Up Group Show. Culver City, CA; Feb 2012"Momentum" Los Angeles Art Association/Gallery 825, Los Angeles, CA; Mar 2012. Curator: Rita Gonzalez

+ "Juried Show Open" Topanga Canyon Gallery, Topanga, CA; Jan 2012. Curator: Franklyn Liegel.

+ "Soft Machine UT" USC Institute for Genetic Medicine Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Jan 2012. Curator: Mike Saijo.

+ "Chain Letter Group Show" Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica, CA; July 2011

GROUP EXHIB. CONT.:

+ "National Juried Exhibition" Chico Art Center, Chico, CA; July 2011. Curator: Peter Frank

+"Juried Show Open" Topanga Canyon Gallery, Topanga, CA; Jan 2011. Curator: Craig Krull.

+ "South Bay Focus" Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA; Nov. 2010. Curator: Max Presneill, Nov 2010

+ "Masquarade Masks" Blythe Projects, Culver City, CA; Oct 2010

+ "2nd Annual Mobius Group Show" Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA; August 201

+ "Troika 7 International Group Show", Norwich England; May 2009

+ "Wolf Gallery Group Show", Los Angeles, January 2009

+ "Edgar Varela Fine Arts Gallery Group Show", Los Angeles, November 2008

+"Gehry Partners Group Show", Los Angeles, December 2007/2006

PUBLISHED WORK/ PRESENTATIONS:

+ "New American Paintings 2016 West #126" 

+ "Best of LA - Saatchi Art" Jan 2015. Curated by Bridget Carron

+ Art Nerd http://art-nerd.com/losangeles/artists-row-at-la-times-festival-of-books/ April 2014

+ Art Dinner Interview http://artdinners.wordpress.com/2014/02/11/essi-zim-at-prohibition-gallery/ Feb 2014 

+ Viva Bang Bang Interview http://vivabangbang.com/artist-feature-essi-zimm/ Feb 2014

+Artillery "Pick of the Week" Jan 2014

+ Buzzine Arts Review: Pop Art Gallery - Ten on 25 Feb 2012

+ Made in California Catalog. City of Breas Art Gallery 27th Annual Juried Exhibition; Mar 2012

+ Momentum Catalog. Los Angeles Art Association/Gallery 825, Los Angeles, CA; Mar 2012

+"Scarla" Book Cover for writer BC Furtney Aug 2010

+ Young at Arts Speaker 2010+ Young at Art Workshop Winner 2009

+ Beach Reporter Article on "Scattered" Jan 2009 

COLLECTORS:

+ FRANK GEHRY, ARCHITECT

+ EDWARD ALBEE, PLAYWRIGHT

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