LOS ANGELES, CA.- Corey Helford Gallery premiered Jasmine Becket-Griffith’s newest solo show, Magical Thinking, on Saturday, July 28 in the Main Gallery. This is Becket-Griffith’s second solo show with Corey Helford. Two years in the making, Magical Thinking premieres twenty new acrylic paintings and over a dozen small-scale studies, as well as the debut of her first-ever large-scale sculptural installation.
“I love the term ‘Magical Thinking,’” says Becket-Griffith. “It has the unapologetically optimistic feel of being a euphemistic term for ‘positive vibes,’ but it is also technically a psychological disorder indicating the inappropriately fallacious attribution of cause and effect between actions and events, with sometimes sinister implications. Being a painter, a (very) amateur philosopher, and a dilettante in various scientific and mathematical fields, I find myself gravitating towards the idea of Magical Thinking, Sympathetic Magic, and my own rampant OCD when it comes to finding signs and symbols in everyday life that strike a chord in my subconscious. Whether it's the unexpected juxtaposition between patterns and designs, words and colours, meanings and abstractions—I find myself combining permutations of symbolic images with things I find aesthetically pleasing and cerebrally interesting and this collection of paintings displays the results graphically.”
Magical Thinking explores Becket-Griffith’s fantastical world in a way she has not done before, with each work revealing meticulously crafted juxtapositions between the expressions, moods, and patterns of the ethereal, big-eyed fairies, familiars, dragonlings, mermaids and more that inhabit each portrait. The show is comprised of works ranging from 8” x 10” to large-scale 36” x 48.” One of her most famous characters, a mermaid named “Porcelina” with a Blue Willow porcelain patterned tail, has been recreated as a 72” sculptural installation in collaboration with a New Orleans-based prop studio. This is Becket-Griffith’s first time creating a sculptural piece of this scale.
Jasmine Becket-Griffith is a freelance artist who specializes in fairy, fantasy, and gothic artwork. Her preferred medium is acrylic on canvas or wood and her designs appear on many lines of licensed merchandise, notably through the chain stores Hot Topic and collectibles through the Bradford Group including co-branded Disney projects. She is also a staple at fantasy conventions, namely Dragon*Con, MegaCon (Orlando), and FaerieCon.
Jasmine has been doing freelance co-branded artwork with the Walt Disney Company since 2006 as an independent contractor. Her artwork is on view at Pop Gallery, Orlando at Downtown Disney in the Walt Disney World Resort, and her licensed Disney character artwork can be found at Disneyland’s WonderGround Gallery in Anaheim, CA as well as Disney World’s Disney Marketplace Co-Op. She lives in Celebration, FL with her husband/assistant, author Matthew David Becket, and also maintains a small studio in London.
