Jessie Kanji (b.1997, Wellington) is an artist, researcher and educator. Kanji primarily uses print as a method of thinking, exploring colour and pattern through haptic processes to construct a visual language that speaks to the sensuousness of materials in the modern era. In the amber-like qualities of ink, her work seeks to evoke rasa, a concept from classical Indian aesthetics described as a state of total absorption, sensory immersion and emotional resonance.
She completed a Bachelor of Science in Physiology (2019) with a concentration in sensory neuroscience, and a Postgraduate Diploma of Fine Arts (2023) specialising in print at Elam School of Fine Arts, Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland. In 2023, Jessie received the National Youth Art Award, WSA. In 2025, she received the Early Career Fund from Creative New Zealand and a fellowship award from Rhode Island School of design to complete her Master of Fine arts in Printmaking, researching how haptics catalyse patterns that carry their own visual syntax and semantics.