Jesse Genepi (b. 1995) is a Los Angeles-based artist. He holds a BFA from the University of Minnesota and an MFA from the University of California, Davis.
Genepi’s paintings emerge from a synthesis of science, visionary art, and cosmology, distilling his worldview into layered compositions of paint and collage. Each layer acts as an asemic history of self, bearing the deliberate hand of the artist in defiance of mechanized anonymity. His works resist traditional image-making, instead demanding an embodied experience—one that unfolds through shifting light, perspective, and time.
Utilizing color-shifting materials and drawing from the histories of Light and Space art, as well as optical art, Genepi creates works in a state of perpetual flux. The interplay of colors, textures, and brushstrokes serves as an analogue for human relationships—collapsing, colliding, and coalescing in an ongoing dialogue between chaos and structure.
At the core of this visual language is a syncretic approach, a fusion of metaphysical inquiry, digital aesthetics, and universal form constants. Fragments of varied belief systems and symbolic motifs coalesce, offering a portal into a reconstructed reality. Through these layered compositions, Genepi invites the viewer to navigate the shifting terrain of perception, meaning, and interconnectedness.
Recent exhibition history includes Sweet Tooth at Gallery 12.26, Los Angeles, CA, The Furnace of Becoming at Elsa Lee Bruno, LA A Line to You at Noon Projects, LA, Black Lodge at Island Gallery, NYC. Genepi was a 2023 artist-in-residence at Art House San Clemente.