Jessica Stockholder
Jessica Stockholder’s (b. 1959, Seattle; lives/works Nanaimo, BC) extensive practice arises in relationship to the excessive expendability of physical materials within a capitalist or post-capitalist society. Her work expertly incorporates readily available materials, such as building supplies, plastic bags and containers, faux and real fur, furniture, carpet, and electronics that are found, repurposed, purchased, and gifted, into assemblages that crisscross the boundary between sculpture and painting. Working with paint and the local colour of her materials, the artist creates a coherent experience that is at once dependent on, and floats free of, the objects from which the works are made. These painting/sculptures—constructed sites of inquiry—are informed by abstract expressionism, minimalism, installation art, and consumerism. Stockholder’s work finds beauty in complexity and contradiction, points to the intermingling of our invented world with the given, and reflects back to us the fascinating detritus of contemporary life.
For over thirty years, Stockholder has exhibited widely in museums and galleries internationally. Her work is represented in the permanent collections of numerous museums, including the Whitney Museum of Art, New York; The Art Institute of Chicago; MoCA LA; SF MoMA; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The British Museum, London; and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Stockholder’s recent solo exhibitions include the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (2024); Frac Normandie, Sotteville-lès-Rouen (2023); Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago (2021); 1301PE, Los Angeles (2020); The Contemporary Austin (2018); Galerie nächst St. Stephan, Vienna (2016); Smart Museum, Chicago (2015); and Frac des Pays de la Loire, Nantes (2012). Recent group exhibitions include Musée d’art modern et contemporain, Saint-Étienne (2022); SFMoMA, San Francisco (2022); Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin (2021); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2021); Deichtorhallen Hamburg (2019); Musee d’Art Contemporain de Bordeaux (2017); and The National Academy Museum, New York (2016).