Jessi James.ai
Germany
Where do you locate yourself in relation to the systems you work with?
Where are you heading, and what is pulling you there?
How would you describe the space your practice is currently unfolding in?
Description
Jessi's Spa and Nails Short, curious scenes in a nail salon. At Jessi's Spa and Nails, elaborate Western outfits meet exaggeratedly long acrylic nails. Cowboys in fringes, leather, and embroidery sit motionless at nail tables while their hands disappear into neon colors and glitter. The nail salon becomes a stage: an artificial, overdecorated space between wellness, work, and fantasy. The figures move slowly, almost solemnly, as if they had fallen into this kitschy present from another time. Masculine myth and hyperfeminine aesthetics collide and merge. The scenes are short, fragmentary, and slightly exaggerated. A place where care becomes performance and the cowboy becomes ornament.
Process
What initially inspired me to create this artwork was my fascination with elaborately decorated Western suits—their ornamentation, embroidery, and precision craftsmanship. I was drawn to the desire to design such a suit myself and craft it by hand. The suit gave rise to the story: the Western look became the starting point for a character and a world. The nail salon was added as a deliberate contrast—a contemporary, hyper-aesthetic space of care, repetition, and intimacy. The combination brings together myth and everyday life, craftsmanship and artificial surfaces. The artwork moves between materiality and staging. The suit is not an illustration of a story, but its origin—everything else is arranged around it.
Tools
The visual scenes in the film were created from individual images generated with Midjourney, which were then animated with Kling. The soundtrack was developed with Sora and forms an independent, atmospheric layer within the work. A central component of the work is the purple Western suit, which was handcrafted in my studio. This physical costume acts as a connecting element between analog materiality and the digital image world and was deliberately integrated into the film. The work combines AI-based image and sound production with classic costume craftsmanship and can be understood as a hybrid form between film, installation, and object. The installation was first presented in January as part of a group exhibition.
