Jesse Ferdinand’s ambient dreamscapes and allegorical visions explore the psychological grey areas that exist on the edges of human perception. “In drawing classes, they say, don’t draw what you think you’re seeing, draw what you’re actually seeing,” he says. “I feel like the world has these utility corridors where you’re off script. It’s almost like I’m populating the places people aren’t.” Ferdinand describes his process as an intuitive synthesis of his long-held interests in art and visual culture. Video game scores, horror films, surrealist painting, fairy tales, and prehistoric art are some of the influences in his work. He also cites pareidolia, the perception of profound meaning in random visual cues, as an influence. “It all goes into my head and ferments in a big pile,” he says. “The art is the mushrooms that comes out of it. My brain is one giant compost pile.”
Ferdinand has always been an artist, but his latest body of work began in 2015. Most recently, he has presented work at Interact Gallery. In 2023, he presented work at HGA Architects in Minneapolis, MN, and the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chaska, MN. In 2025, his work was included in In a dark time the eye begins to see, an exhibition at Andrew Edlin Gallery in New York, curated by Robert Cozzolino.
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