About

Jesse Jinna Ruiz is an artist from San Antonio, TX. Working across different media, colors and forms are the primary subjects of Jesse Ruiz’s drawings, collages, watercolors, animations and paintings. Her paintings are subtle geometrical abstractions that explore shape, color and surface texture and are created from paper collages. By analyzing the compositional structures of representational art, the abstract forms in these two-dimensional works illustrate the division of foreground, middle ground and background. The translation between distinct media is also a subject of her creative investigations.

Jesse was born in Seoul, South Korea in 1988 on the 8^th day of the 8^th month of the year, the daughter of a US Army soldier and a Korean country woman. She grew up in a military family, living across the USA, South Korea, and Germany. Her bi-racial and queer identity have been the subject of her zines and films.

Jesse earned a MA and MFA in 2014/2015 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She graduated from Barnard College-Columbia University in 2011 with a BA in Philosophy and attended San Antonio College for fine arts courses in 2009. 

She lives and works in San Antonio, TX. 

Jesse Jinna Ruiz CV