Monastery of New Bayswater

Jessee Lee Johns was born in 1980 in Boorloo/Perth, and more or less hangs about and makes work there.

At some stage Jessee muddled his way through a bachelor’s degree in fine art at Curtin University, but didn’t really seem to understand what was going on.  This led to a fairly lengthy sabbatical from the practice of fine art.

Jessee is the proprietor of Prestige Bricks, a store that makes feature bricks, repairs bricks that have seen better days and somehow addresses the housing crisis.

At some stage it struck him as a good idea to make some paintings, but not knowing where to show them, Jessee decided to make a gallery in a popular fly dumping spot in Perth’s outer suburbs. After putting on a couple of shows there, someone moved in, and it was subsequently demolished.  The gallery, CIOMA, went on to be rebuilt in a variety of contexts, most notably in an alternate future in the year 2020, from which it was summoned back to 2018.

In 2017 Jessee established a small nation called the Commonwealth of New Bayswater, of which they and a friend are the only citizens. And just in case you, the reader of this bio, feel as though you have been overlooked and your citizenship should be made official, it is probably the case that the paperwork is currently making its way through the bureaucracy, and will be granted in due course. The Commonwealth appears from time to time, establishing its borders when conditions are favourable (generally coinciding with the Fremantle Biennale), fading as they turn.  Kind of like an algal bloom, but instead of phosphates from agricultural runoff, it’s mining money in one way or another.