about

Jessica Gabriel is a multidisciplinary artist from the Sunshine Coast, BC, currently working as a shadow puppeteer, theatre maker, and art model in Vancouver, Canada on unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam, Tsleil-Watuth, and Squamish Nations.

She has a painting degree, a clown diploma, a permaculture design certificate, and since 2003 is co-artistic director of Mind of a Snail Puppet Co.

Her practice centres on mixed media and assemblage; drawing from debris and found materials in the immediate environment. She approaches art and life through the playful lens of “compost-modernism” where ideas are continually being mulched and recycled, rotting, dying and made new again.

Jessica creates experimental improvised sounds using old cassette tapes under the name tay_ploops (pronounced tape loops).

The roots of their schooling are 10+ years of french immersion; and before that she learned sign language from the cat.  Jessica’s first word was “bird” and she still randomly tweets.

She holds a BFA from UBC and studied at l’École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. A professional art model at Emily Carr University, Langara College and more.

She is trained in Pochinko-style clowning and is a founding member of the ASSEMBLY: a lofty and playful intersectional feminist clown collective.