Miami-Born Artist Jessie Bowie Creates Weird, Wonderful Celebrity Mashups

Bananarama.

Who are your fave celebs?
Man, I love all the celebs. From Alien -- is the alien a celeb? -- to Lil Wayne to ... John Wayne. They can all be painted as silly or terrifying as I like, and that's what a I'm looking for in a celebrity right now. The celebs I'd like to see the most in person are Prince and Tom Waits.

Do you draw any inspiration from living in Florida?
I wish I drew more inspiration from living in Florida, like painting sunsets and palm trees and fish. I'd probably be making a lot more money! I think what I'm doing now is pretty understandable to anyone regardless of being a Floridian. I feel inspired to paint inside because its so damned hot.

I understand you used to be a South Florida local. What's your favorite thing about our neck of the woods?
954! Haha, yeah. I moved to Sarasota after high school, and visit friends and family in South Florida occasionally. I used to love going to Churchill's every Monday for that open-mic night, and the art walk in Wynwood. I miss the Swap Shop and Cuban food. There's like one Cuban restaurant here, and it's pretty lame. Even though the beaches here are nice, I miss Hollywood beach the most. There's a place on the boardwalk with an excellent $1.25 pistachio soft serve. Haha, I sound like a 90-year-old lady who loves a good deal.

His next role.

Don't kid yourself. We all love a good deal. Do you take requests? For example, Pit Bull's head on a liger's body?

I will try and paint anything. I think the weirdest request I got was a painting of David Bowie and Prince spooning on a daisy or some other flower. Or Tom Waits as a chimp holding an ice cream come with Jerry Garcia's head on it. Custom orders are my favorite to do. Then I get to really compare my weirdness to others, and surprisingly enough, I'm not the weird one.

Is this a full-time gig for you?
Unfortunately, this is not my full-time job, but my other jobs are pretty great, so I'm not upset about it. I think if this was my full-time job I might get burned out, which has happened a couple times. I need variety to stay interested.

Faaaaabulous!

Any big plans in the works for your art?
I'm pretty excited I found this awesome print shop in Sarasota, so hopefully I will be selling a lot more and having a lot more inventory on hand. I'm thinking about doing bigger paintings, maybe with full casts of TV shows or bands. I owe my sister a painting, so I guess that's my biggest plan right now.

You can buy Bowie's paintings at her Etsy shop. All of the works shown above are available for sale. You can also find her on Tumblr.

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