Jessy Wilson-McFarlin

About Jessy Wilson McFarlin

Jessy Wilson McFarlin is an artist and composer based in Austin, Texas. Her practice includes sound, performance, sculpture, and installation. At the center of her work is the voice: its physical presence, the histories it carries, and the ways it can hold memory, labor, grief, and lineage.

McFarlin’s sound practice grows out of more than two decades as a singer, songwriter, and recording artist. Her recent work moves beyond conventional song form to explore the physical and emotional possibilities of sound. She is interested in what happens when the voice is fragmented, altered, layered, or freed from the expectation to perform. Rhythm, breath, repetition, and silence guide this work and shape the way she composes.

Her recent work includes The Weight of Rest, an autobiographical multidisciplinary performance weaving together archival film, spoken narrative, music, and original sound. Tracing her evolving relationship to voice across a lifetime of artistic labor, the work considers what a voice carries and what it can become when it is no longer being asked to perform.

McFarlin began making sculptural works during a period when singing and songwriting no longer gave her access to what she needed to express. Working with raw canvas, plaster, and architectural paint, she found another way to follow the gestures and impulses that had previously moved through her voice. She folds, gathers, and presses the canvas into forms that retain the memory of pressure, weight, and movement. Her sculptural works continue to develop alongside her sound practice and have been commissioned for private collections and architectural spaces.

McFarlin is a two-time recipient of the City of Austin’s Elevate Grant in support of her interdisciplinary practice. Her work as a singer, songwriter, and recording artist includes collaborations with John Legend, Tyler, the Creator, Patrick Carney, and many others. “Keep Rising,” which she cowrote and recorded for the film The Woman King, received a GRAMMY nomination in 2023. Her experience in recording studios, on stages, and as a songwriter continues to inform the questions she brings to sound and material.