Nascent Frauds is a collaborative series started by Indianapolis-based artist Jessie Beck with assistance from Zed Martinez. The series is a collection of pieces of varying sizes and mediums intended to reflect the duality that is often present in minds plagued by mental illness.

As the originator of the concept, Beck decided in order to extract a more authentic presence of someone being “of two minds” each piece would require input from multiple artists. The methodology would be for one artist to start a portrait of someone the other person was unfamiliar with, and once the groundwork was in place and the piece partially finished it would then be handed to the second artist for completion. No stipulations were placed on the second artist in how they they could resolve the piece, in either medium or application. The two artists would alternate who was beginning and who was finishing each piece.

The first piece of the series–Plate #4: Still Life of Bastion in Storm–was a piece started by Beck in her early college studio as a stylized study based on the works of Lucien Freud. It sat untouched for almost a decade before being unearthed for this project. It was then given to Martinez to complete as a litmus test for the viability of the project. The final results were satisfactory to both artists, and the series remains ongoing at this time.