March 2008 artist: Jessica Price

Noir Art Emporium presents paintings by Jessica Price during the month of March 2008, with an opening reception March 7.

Jessica Lee Price, a 20-year-old student at the University of Illinois at Chicago, grew up in Palos Park, but now lives in downtown Chicago. She has been painting and making art for as long as she can remember.

"I use my art as a form to communicate the feelings I get in normal everyday life," she says. "Some of my ideas stem from memories of childhood feelings and comforts, to frustrations of love and relationships, to trying to construct an identity from the many pieces that make up a personality."

She says each person has many different identities that make up their whole.

"I like to try and pick them apart and examine each one within the art that I create."

She's always been attracted to color, and uses lots of it in her work.

"I feel color can define and create different emotions for each viewer. I usually stick closely to mediums such as acrylics, spray paint, and paint pens because the deep saturated colors and bold lines that they create emphasize my intense connection with the subjects that I try to define in my art. I often try to find things to paint on besides canvas, such as styrofoam because it will often react with the mediums I use in a different way to form new relationships with a subject that could not be formed on canvas."

The main purpose for her art is that it makes the viewer feel something: "Happy, annoyed, silly, or in love ... whatever," she says. "Because I feel that everyone is always running around too much and we all need a second to step back and just feel."

The exhibition will be on display throughout the month of March.