Bobbi Essers

Her distinctive aesthetic is defined by limbs and objects transgressing across borders, reaching over one another and even out towards the viewer. Faces are hidden or obscured, as these are among the features that resonate least with Essers.

“The face doesn’t hold much power for me. There are many more ways to understand the closeness of people than through their facial expressions, which can easily be faked anyway, i.e. ‘Smile for the camera!’. My work is more about the friendship than the friends themselves.”

Manifesting a potent sense of interconnectivity, Essers’ works speak to her generation’s sense of longing for platonic intimacy in the face of rapid societal developments. Rebutting the anxieties that can feel consuming to younger generations, the artist is exceptionally secure in her own skin, as the exhibition title The World at Our Command confirms.

Operating along the lines of the old axiom, “Your friends are the family you choose” at the heart of Essers’ work is a deterministic confidence that she is in control of her destiny.

“It’s saying that we decide our own world. I command what I paint and how I do it, and why. It’s also a generational thing. We are up-and-coming, and we are leading in our own ways.”