Jesse Lee Kercheval
Edgewood University-The Stream 1000 Edgewood College Drive, Madison, Wisconsin 53711
media release: August 17 – October 2, 2026.
Jesse Lee Kercheval: Drawn Lives
Artists’ Reception Thursday, September 3, 2026, 5:00 - 7:00 pm
Meet the Artist Saturday, Sept. 12, 2026, or Sunday, Sept. 20, 2026, 1:00 - 4:00 pm
Drawn Lives introduces Jesse Lee Kercheval as a visual artist and writer whose multidisciplinary work explores the intersections of memory and narrative. Previously a Professor of Creative Writing at University of Wisconsin, she is widely known for her award-winning career as a poet, novelist, memoirist, and translator. Kercheval has more recently developed a distinct and increasingly recognized presence in the visual arts. Her practice centers on drawings through which she creates intimate, atmospheric images that blur the lines between autobiography, myth, and dream.
Kercheval’s turn to visual art began during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when she found herself living in Montevideo, Uruguay, and began drawing daily as a way to confront fear, solitude, and uncertainty. What started as an instinctive act of self-preservation quickly evolved into a vibrant new artistic direction. In addition to her original art, her drawings now form the backbone of a growing body of graphic narratives that merge her lifelong love of storytelling with the immediacy and vulnerability of visual mark-making.
Her first graphic memoir French Girl (Fieldmouse Press), exploring the mythical and monstrous in memoir, was named one of The Washington Post’s Best Graphic Novels of 2024 and has brought wide attention to her visual work.
Drawn Lives, shows works included in French Girl, standalone portraiture, a new subversive, surreal large canvas work, and digital prints from her second graphic memoir, Household Gods forthcoming in Spring 2027.
Kercheval’s narrator is not necessarily someone within the image and her subversive humor, nonlinearity, and vibrant color helps push the limits of what stories can do.
Regular gallery hours: Monday – Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. or by appointment, call 608-663-2300
