Jacky describes herself as a digital artisan, using her in-depth knowledge of high-tech production processes to bring her vivid designs to life; thrilling compositions of wild animals, foliage and luxury threads and fabrics.
We asked Jacky: What is it that gives your work its unique signature? My signature style fuses fur, feathers, velvet and organza with digital embroidery and unique fabrics of my own design, to create touch-me textures that bring my pieces alive. From feathered interior screens to shimmering metallic bomber jackets, my pieces combine references to classical mythology, hints of baroque decadence and a nod to punk rebellion.
My practice fuses artistic concept with traditional artisanship; a disciplinary intersection between concept and materiality; art and contemporary craft; visual cultures and contemporary technologies. I explore a visual collaboration across cultures, from multicultural graffiti-d contemporary cityscapes to historical textile motifs and traditional cloths.
My pieces are built out of layers of drawing, print, embroidery and appliqué, from a Koi-inspired ‘urban chinoiserie’ fusing Japanese cultural histories and contemporary urban tattoo culture, to the Riotous Heritage collection where feral squirrels riot through the Peacocks and escaped exotic plants in the forgotten gardens of stately homes.
Where did inspiration for this new work come from? My collection ‘Urban Leopards, Neon Cities’ is inspired by Planet Earth II. Cities, where the co-existence and fusion between the living ‘city ghosts’ – the jungle leopards of Sanjay Gandhi National Park – and the Mumbai inhabitants who live within its boundaries, forms a constant tension between natural & manmade environments. It explores the balance of grassroots adaption and change to a world that is threatening a species’ survival but also, conversely, helping their existence with regards to hunting and opportunity.
Leopards appear from behind dark silhouetted leaves in an urban garden setting as they move through the undergrowth at night – their ‘eye shine’ from the lamps above being the only ‘tell’ to the humans around them. Elements of decorative exotica (again reminiscent of the 1920’s and the Ladies walking their “big cats”) overlay and intertwine throughout the work with embroidered and printed butterfly motifs (a signifier of Extinction Rebellion and also of the secret butterfly gardens in Mumbai) with decorative textual elements, inspired by Bollywood billboards but quoting Gandhi, interwoven with the foliage – bringing an exotic, glamorous but dangerous animal and its habitat to life.
Works shown: Cushion and foot-stool from the Urban Leopards, Neon Cities collection. Photos by Jo Hounsome.