Jessica Webster was born in Johannesburg in 1981 and grew up near the mines of Durban Deep in Roodepoort, before relocating to Benoni. Webster obtained her BA degree in Fine Arts from the Michaelis School of Art at the University of Cape Town, where she was awarded the Judy Stein Painting Award in 2005. She completed her Masters of Fine Art and embarked on her PhD in 2011. Webster’s debut exhibition I Knew You in this Dark opened at David Krut Projects in July 2009. She was also one of the artists that participated in the group show DKW Monotype Project at the DKW gallery in October 2010. Webster’s second solo exhibition called Original Skin ran throughout the month of April 2011 at David Krut Projects, Johannesburg. After completing a residency at NIROX Foundation later in 2011, she was invited to exhibit at NIROX Projects at Arts on Main in 2012. Webster describes her earlier body of work as being based on a material and theoretical investigation and understanding of the concept of “trauma”, specifically drawing on theorist Mark Selzer’s theory of trauma as a “border concept”.