Paracosm

Jennika Bastian is a San Francisco based magical realism painter and mask maker. One of her favorite quotes is "Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths" by Joseph Campbell. She views her artwork as a dance between these realms. When Jennika was 5 years old she taught herself how to
lucid dream. Her aesthetic is informed by how objects, environments and characters appear in her dreams: shape shifting, ephemeral, simultaneously growing and decaying. She is fascinated by mythology and folklore in different cultures- particularly how these tales can thread within our subconscious minds, almost as if the stories are organisms unto themselves. Jennika has been self-employed since she was 16 years old, selling her personal artwork and creating commissions. After graduating in 2013 with her Bachelor of Fine Arts from UW Madison, she was employed for eight years at Madison Children’s Museum creating murals, sculptures and different elements of exhibit installations as well as instructing art to children. Her freelance work includes illustrating a young adult fantasy series, installation design for the Burning Man festival, outdoor illuminated sculptures, murals and live painting on stage for concerts. In 2018 she was given a grant to participate in the artist residency, EUARCA+ in tandem with the exhibition Documenta 14, in Kassel Germany, where she exhibited a series of oil paintings inspired by the Brothers Grimm fairy tales. Her work has been exhibited regionally and internationally.