MU art professor displays 'resilience' through artwork after brain injury

After experiencing a stroke in 2013, MU art professor Jessica Thornton faced many challenges, including walking, speaking and writing her name. Several doctors told her she probably would not be able to paint again, which is her passion.

But Thornton never wavered.

“Artists are notorious for finding ways to get things done,” Thornton said. “I sort of tapped into my creative side, I suppose, and just saw this ... this could be a potential opportunity right? Obstacles are opportunities.”

Thornton plans to leave MU after the spring semester to begin the next chapter in her life. To commemorate her time in Missouri, the George Caleb Bingham Gallery on the MU campus is displaying an exhibition of her work.

The exhibition, titled “(In)secure Identity (Dis)abled Body,” continues through April 6.

Thornton, who is originally from Connecticut, came to Missouri after attending graduate school at Washington University in St. Louis. After graduating, she applied to several different universities before accepting a visiting teaching position at MU.

From a young age, Thornton knew she was a painter, and it was then she said she fell in love with painting.

“I found old Christmas lists where everything on the list — this is from when I was eight, nine — oil paints, canvas, easel, you know, they’re very serious art materials,” Thornton said.

Thornton said her mother wanted to be an artist, which influenced her own start with painting. Though in high school she did not envision herself as a professional artist, she kept finding her way back to painting.

“It’s just always been right,” Thornton said.

That was true even after the stroke, which left her with some severe complications. While Thornton was spending some time in Louisiana, she was misdiagnosed with vertigo. It was later discovered she had developed hydrocephalus — a condition where excess fluid builds in the cavities of the brain. After having emergency brain surgery, Thornton could begin to think about creating art again.

MU accessibility director Amber Cheek worked to help get Thornton a studio assistant — Thornton’s long-time partner, Matt Bryson. Thornton and Bryson have been together for over seven years and Bryson is an artist himself.

“He came in and helped in so many ways,” Thornton said. “Matt became my body, he does the difficult moving I can’t do. He made teaching the way I wanted to teach possible.”

While neither Bryson nor Thornton was sure how this new collaboration was going to work, she said it bonded them in a way they would have never had the opportunity to otherwise professionally.

“We have really learned to trust each other,” Thornton said.

Art to help people heal

A solo exhibition is a rarity at the George Caleb Bingham Art Gallery, but its director, Catherine Armbrust, wanted to highlight Thornton’s work once her departure was solidified.

Armbrust has known Thornton for more than a decade and even displays one of her paintings in her home.

“She’s got this sort of beautiful, loving, empathetic temperament,” Armbrust said.

Thornton’s exhibition centers around themes related to race and disability, like resilience.

“(I’m) really trying to flush out all these 14 years, really honing in more about the disability,” Thornton said. “How I can use this disability to help people, how I can use this disability to speak about resilience? That’s where I need to go, where I can use art to help people heal.”

Of the 17 paintings on display, Thornton said she resonates the most with one titled “Self-Portrait as Judith with Good Hair and Bamboo Earrings.” She started this painting in 2012 — just before the stroke — and completed it in 2016. After the stroke, she had to completely relearn how to use her hands to create art, which extended the process of creating this painting. She said the piece references all the different elements of who she is, which is why it means so much to her.

The bamboo earrings are a reference to the 1980’s and the empowerment of being a Black woman. Zebra stripes — a common theme in her work — also represent race.

Thornton began incorporating cut paper into her paintings just before her stroke, but after, these paper fragments became a focal point of her work. The task of cutting paper came with its own set of challenges. Some of the pieces of paper she could not fully cut herself, which is why the completion of a painting titled “Chronic Pain” and its size — four feet by four feet — is so impactful to her.

“It was tedious,” Thornton said. “I was trying to equate the experience of dealing with race, being a person who deals with race as being laborious.”

“It’s like a binding contract between you and the paper, putting this endless group of pieces together. To me, that’s what it’s like. Dealing with being a person of color in the world sometimes, which is just tedious.”

After the exhibition and end of the academic year, Thornton and Bryson will return to Connecticut to continue working on art and growing together.

Their plans aren’t exactly pinned down, but one constant will remain for them.

“What’s next, I don’t know,” Thornton said. “But I’m hopeful. I know art is a part of it.”

Click here to view the original story found in the Columbia Missourian on March 24, 2023 by Julia Williams.