Jesse Darling’s multi-disciplinary practice considers how bodily subjects are initially formed and continuously reformed through sociopolitical influences. JD draws on his own experience as well as the narratives of history and counter-history. He explores the inherent vulnerability of being a body, and how the inevitable mortality of living things translates to civilizations and structures. Featuring an array of free-floating consumer goods, support devices, liturgical objects, construction materials, fictional characters and mythical symbols, JD’s work recontextualizes manmade objects to reveal their precarity. Simultaneously wounded and liberated shapes outwardly bare their frailty and need for care and healing.
Jesse Darling (b. 1981, Oxford, United Kingdom) lives and works in London and Berlin. He received his MFA from the Slade School of Fine Art at University College, London, and his BA from Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. He has had solo exhibitions at the Modern Art Oxford in Oxford; the Tate Britain, London; Galerie Sultana, Paris, Triangle France, Marseille; Chapter NY, New York; and, Arcadia Missa, London. Darling’s work was included in the 58th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, and other group exhibitions at the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Frankfurt; The Drawing Center, New York; Chapter NY, New York; Museum MMK für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt; Swiss Institute, New York; Neu Gallerie, Berlin; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; SALTS, Basel; VITRINE, London; Biennale d’art contemporain, Rennes, FRA; and Galerie Sultana, Paris; among others.
Darling was recently nominated for the 2023 Turner Prize and will have an exhibition at Towner Eastbourne, UK opening Fall 2023.















