Jess Bush (born 26 March 1992) is an Australian actor, model, reality television personality, and

visual artist The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts al ...

. Her television work includes competing on the seventh season of the reality TV series ''

Australia's Next Top Model ''Australia's Next Top Model'' is an Australian reality television series which premiered on 11 January 2005 and concluded on 22 November 2016, and was based on Tyra Banks' ''America's Next Top Model''. It was broadcast on the Australian subscr ...

'', and playing Nurse

Christine Chapel Christine Chapel is a fictional character who appears in all three seasons of the American science fiction television series ''Star Trek: The Original Series'', as well as '' Star Trek: The Animated Series'' and the films '' Star Trek: The Motion ...

on '' Star Trek: Strange New Worlds''.

Personal life

Jess Bush was born on 26 March 1992, and is from

Keperra, Queensland Keperra is a suburb in the City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. In the , Keperra had a population of 6,807 people. It is located by road north-west of the Brisbane GPO. Geography The railway line running east between Keperra, Grovely, ...

, a suburb of

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Queensland, and the third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of approximately 2.6 million. Brisbane lies at the centre of the South ...

, Australia. In speaking with ''

The Daily Beast ''The Daily Beast'' is an American news website focused on politics, media, and pop culture. It was founded in 2008. It has been characterized as a "high-end tabloid" by Noah Shachtman, the site's editor-in-chief from 2018 to 2021. In a 20 ...

'' in mid-2023 about '' Star Trek: Strange New Worlds'' LGBTQ+ representation—and her portrayal of a bisexual character—Bush unhesitatingly told the interviewer, "I'm queer".

Visual arts work

since childhood, Bush began selling her pieces professionally at age 19. She is also a

jewellery design Jewellery design is the art or profession of designing and creating jewellery. This is one of civilization's earliest forms of decoration, dating back at least 7,000 years to the oldest known human societies in Indus Valley Civilization, Mesopo ...

er, and some of her pieces appear on ''Strange New Worlds''.

''Bee Totem''

In 2019, Bush began developing and exhibiting her ongoing ''Bee Totem'' series. She collects dead

honey bee A honey bee (also spelled honeybee) is a eusocial flying insect within the genus ''Apis'' of the bee clade, all native to Afro-Eurasia. After bees spread naturally throughout Africa and Eurasia, humans became responsible for the current cosm ...

s from

beekeeper A beekeeper is a person who keeps honey bees. Beekeepers are also called honey farmers, apiarists, or less commonly, apiculturists (both from the Latin '' apis'', bee; cf. apiary). The term beekeeper refers to a person who keeps honey bees i ...

s, and preserves them in spheres of crystal resin and attaching fine jewellery chains. Her exhibitions collaborate with projection artists and

sound design Sound design is the art and practice of creating sound tracks for a variety of needs. It involves specifying, acquiring or creating auditory elements using audio production techniques and tools. It is employed in a variety of disciplines including ...

ers to hang the many preserved bees at different heights to create shapes and experiences in three-dimensional space. For herself, ''Bee Totem'' is about recognizing and emphasizing the importance of the bees that, not only make the human world livable, but then "live by the thousands and die quietly by the thousands." The individual preserved bee in the sphere is amplified and magnified, showing its intelligence and beauty; it causes the observer to "pause and think about the moment that it died, because its frozen in that moment after its death, so its kind of like a memorial." The installation then amplifies "that impact of thousands dead at the same time". Having received several rounds of funding from the

Australian Government The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Like other Westminster-style systems of government, the Australian Government ...

by 2022, Bush described it as "the most significant work that

he's He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

ever made" with a goal of doing so "probably forever". She would like to build a

cathedral A cathedral is a church that contains the '' cathedra'' () of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denominatio ...

for thousands of preserved bees, to allow people to quietly sit and reflect in the immensity of sacrifice. While acting, Bush takes a hiatus from her visual art work, though she has taken her materials when shooting.

Performing arts career

Bush's first television appearance was competing on the seventh season of the reality TV series ''

''; she told the programme that she entered modeling for the challenge, competitiveness, travel, and variety. In Australia, she has also performed on '' Home and Away'' and ''Playing for Keeps''. Leaving Australian TV for the first time with 2022's '' Star Trek: Strange New Worlds'', Bush co-stars as

(the second actor in the role after

Majel Barrett Majel Barrett-Roddenberry (; born Majel Leigh Hudec;
, ''

the original ''Star Trek'').

Heavy Heavy may refer to: Measures * Heavy (aeronautics), a term used by pilots and air traffic controllers to refer to aircraft capable of 300,000 lbs or more takeoff weight * Heavy, a characterization of objects with substantial weight * Heavy, ...

described Bush's interpretation of the character as "very different ..fun, irreverent, and a bit of a live wire." Bush eschews her native

Australian accent Australian English (AuE) is a non-rhotic variety of English spoken by most native-born Australians. Phonologically, it is one of the most regionally homogeneous language varieties in the world. Australian English is notable for vowel length contr ...

for the performance, a dichotomy that helps her get into character physically and mentally.

Awards

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bush, Jess 1992 births 21st-century Australian actresses 21st-century Australian women artists actresses from Brisbane artists from Brisbane Australian actresses Australian female models Australian installation artists Australian television actresses jewellery designers living people mixed-media artists queer actresses queer artists queer models Top Model contestants women installation artists