Background

Reaves was born in Portland, Oregon, United States, on February 2, 1986.

Education

Jessi Reaves originally studied furniture design at the Rhode Island School of Design but dropped out. A year later she returned to study painting and graduated with her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 2009.

Career

Reaves left Providence for New York in 2010. She got a part-time job working as an upholsterer. As a result, she spent much time in a studio surrounded by bits and scraps. Those leftovers became the starting point for her oeuvre.

Jessi Reaves' works are mainly constructed from sawdust, plywood, foam, wood, car parts and plexiglass and finished with leather, silk, zippered covers and glass. Her materials involve elements of found furniture re-arranged anew. Each piece of her artworks is handcrafted and sculptural, yet never separated from its function.

At the beginning of the artistic career, Reaves participated in group exhibitions held at Golden Rule Gallery, Portland, Oregon, in 2011; International Contemporary Furniture Fair, New York City, New York, in 2013; Shoot the Lobster Gallery, Old Room Gallery, and Bed Stuy Love Affair Gallery, all located in New York City, New York, in 2015.

Jessi Reaves presented her first solo exhibition at Bridget Donahue, New York in April 2016. In 2017 the artist took part in the Whitney Biennial, producing inviting upholstered pieces meant to be utilized in the gallery. The co-curators of the exhibition, Christopher Y. Lew and Mia Locks, noted, "Rejecting the sleek craftsmanship of iconic midcentury design, Reaves exaggerates markers of construction to an almost aggressive abundance."

In 2018 Reaves contributed a sculpture to the group exhibition titled Eckhaus Latta: Possessed, which was held at the Whitney Museum. In addition, John Galliano invited Jessi Reaves to create raw, deconstructed sculptures for Maison Margiela's SS18.

Currently, she lives and works in New York.

Achievements

• 

  Jessi Reaves's works have received recognition all over the world. Her artworks were featured in numerous exhibitions at key galleries and museums, including the White Columns and the Maccarone, Greenwich Street.
  
  Reaves got a special mention during the Hublot Design Prize in Switzerland in 2017.
  
  Today, her works are included in public collections of the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the RISD Museum of Art, Providence, Rhode Island, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, New York.

Works

More photos

• design

  • Anyone Knows How It Happened (Headboard for One)

  • Bad House Shelf

  • Bitches Bonnet Seat

  • Brown Beaded Cabinet

  • Butter-egg-chair II

  • Cabin Shelf

  • Cabinet for Rotten Log

  • Crust of the Lake

  • Drift Wood Chair

  • Engine Room Shelving (Recollection Wedding Edition)

  • European Yellow Couch

  • Foam Couch with Straps

  • Kragel's Nap Chair

  • Modified Wall Shelf with Racing Purse

  • Muscle Chair (Laying down to talk)

  • Night Cabinet (Little Miss Attitude)

  • Quick-To-Sew Jester's Hat (Noguchi Knockoff #1)

  • Rooster Ottoman with Parked chair

  • Rules Around Here (Waterproof Shelf)

  • Series 3 (Noguchi Fender Table)

  • Shelf for a Log

  • Shelf with Beaded Gate

  • Shelf with Pockets & Braid

  • Shop Fan

  • Sink

  • Sports Chair

  • Stained Glass

  • Strategic Vandalism

  • Trunk Bed Box (Weather)

  • Twice Is Not Enough (Red to Green Chair)

Views

Quotations: "Ideally I want people to embrace the kind of patina or whatever you call it... the stuff that attaches to any object existing in the world. I just feel like the longer that I've lived with certain pieces, or ones that I've had in the studio, that have survived parties, I love those pieces more. Even the stains changes over time, spreading out and they kind of have their own life."

References

• Ginny Casey & Jessi Reaves This volume features new and recent works by New York-based artists Ginny Casey (born 1981) and Jessi Reaves (born 1986) exploring the relationship between painting and sculpture, domestic objects and decorative surfaces, by reimagining the form and function of objects encountered in daily life.
  2018
• Art In America Magazine features work by Jessi Reaves, Cave Art, Harald Szeemann, Cheryl Donegan.
  2018