Jessica Puma, b. 1976 is American oil painter and arts educator.  She explores her faith, interpersonal connectedness and loss through a vocabulary of abstracted architecture.  Through a raw handling of wet and dry media, she creates organic and vulnerable structures that resonate emotional solitude.

Jessica earned her Master of Fine Arts from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and she studied, postgraduate in Calcutta, India, and Paris, France.  Her work was published by the University of Pennsylvania, the Artblog and New American Paintings.  Puma’s paintings have been exhibited at Arcadia University, Bridgette Mayer Gallery, and Swartz Gallery in Philadelphia.  She was represented by Nelson Macker Fine Art in NY and her work is in numerous private collections in the United States and Canada.

Jessica Puma is Senior Adjunct Professor of Visual Arts at Rowan College at Burlington County and works as a teaching artist for elementary and multiply disabled students in Camden County, NJ.  She was featured on NJ PBS during the Covid-19 pandemic in the Learning Live Arts program.

CV

PUBLICATIONS/REVIEWS     

2024 Catholic Artist Connection, Issue #443. 

https://catholicartistconnection.com/blog/jessica-puma

2020   NJ PBS, “NJ TV Learning Live.” Aired April 20, 2020. https://www.njtvonline.org/programs/njtv-    learning-live/one-point-perspective-jessica-melchiorre-fifth-grade-c3phez/

2013   Colin Kerrigan, Philly.com.  “Open House; Bonnie and Paul in Pennsport,”  http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/home_and_design/Open-House-Bonnie-and-Paul.html

2009   Liz Abrams-Morley, Necessary Turns, Word Press.

2008   Strauss, Robert.  “A Unique Take on City Scapes” Chadds Ford Post, March 20-26

2007  Naomi Beckwith & Lilianna Milkova. “On Memory, Sites, Migrations and Maps” from Points of Departure: Inner and Outer Journeys in Contemporary Art, Univ. of Pennsylvania

2006 Niv, Sharon. “Art Smart,” The Qbix Gallery Fine Arts Magazine, Issue Three, Volume 1, Winter

2005  Libby Rosoff & Roberta Fallon. “Paris by Puma – Nice View,” The Artblog, August 25                           

2005  New American Paintings, 57th Edition, April

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2024   

Life in Color, Sitar Gallery, Washington, DC

Converge, Bridgette Maher Gallery, Philadelphia

Celebrating Art and Life, Perelman Building, University of Pennsylvania

2021   

Near Wild Heaven, SoundPlex, NJ (solo)

2019   

Heavenly Places, Votta Hall, Rowan College at Burlington County (solo)

2018   

Faculty Exhibition, Rowan College at Burlington County

2015   

Faculty Exhibition, Camden County College, NJ

2013   

Bridgette Mayer Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

2011   

Faculty Exhibition, Camden County College, NJ

Ballet X, Group exhibition, Bridgette Mayer Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

2009   

You don’t have to go anywhere,  PII Gallery, Philadelphia, PA (solo)

Teeth, Pageant Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

Back on your Feet, Bridgette Mayer Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

2008   

Emerging Artists from New York to California, Nelson Macker Fine Art, New York

My Many Homes, PII Gallery, Philadelphia, PA (solo)

Seven Painters, Centennial Gallery, The Haverford School, PA

2007  

Projected Spaces, collaborative project with filmmaker, Ish Klein in conjunction with F.U.E.L. Gallery, Philadelphia, PA      

Points of Departure: Inner and Outer Journeys in Contemporary Art,  Fox Gallery, University of Pennsylvania                    

Spirit Wind Series, Collaborative Performance with Headlong Dance Company,  Philadelphia, PA

2006 

Faculty Exhibition, Camden County College, NJ

US Artists Exhibition, represented by Schwarz Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

Caramoor Art Fair, represented by Nelson Macker Fine Art, NY

2005 

Works on Paper, Arcadia University, Juror, Cornelia Butler, Chief Curator of Drawings and Prints,  MoMA, NY

Drawing to Recall, Nelson Macker Fine Art, New York (solo)

Sea and Be Seen, Nelson Macker Fine Art, NY

Paintings of Paris, Afif Gallery, Philadelphia, PA (solo)

Crushed Crushes, ARC Gallery, Chicago, IL

Dream Relief, Darius Gallery, Philadelphia (solo)