“Vibrant, pulsating color is the overriding impression conveyed by the several dozen works that Jessica Stockholder made during her Dieu Donné Lab Grant residency. Paper pulp holds hues in a very special way; having the pigment attached onto its very stuff—literally, macerated and reconstituted fiber—the resulting work is saturated with color, which can be so vivid that it conveys the impression of something almost purely optical that hovers in our field of vision. A certain material vagueness in pigmented paper pulp thus seems ideal for Stockholder, who has always enjoyed the erasure of distinctions: between gross matter and art, composition and formlessness, narrative and abstraction, sculpture and painting."

— Faye Hirsch, excerpt from Color Degree Zero, essay for Jessica Stockholder: Pucker, Lab Grant Publication Series No.7, Dieu Donné.

About the Artist

Jessica Stockholder’s (b. 1959, Seattle, WA) sprawling constructions have played a crucial role in expanding the dialogue between sculpture and painting and form and space. Within her work, the artist merges seemingly disparate, everyday objects to create holistic, colorful installations. Stockholder employs quotidian goods such as plastic bags and containers, extension cords, lumber, plywood, carpets and furniture, drawing attention to the aesthetic and formal qualities of these often overlooked items while avoiding overt symbolism and narrative storytelling. With deliberate placement and the eye of a master colorist, she maps out a constructed world informed by numerous artistic traditions, including abstract expressionism, color field painting, installation art and minimalism.

Jessica Stockholder was born in 1959 in Seattle, Washington and currently lives and works in Chicago, Illinois. She 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 had her third solo exhibition at Mitchell-Innes & Nash, The Guests All Crowded Into the Dining Room, in the fall of 2016. Recent solo museum exhibitions include Stuff Matters at the Centraal Museum, Utrecht and Relational Aesthetics at The Contemporary Austin, Austin in 2019. The artist lives and works in Chicago, IL. (Source: Mitchell-Innes & Nash)

For more information, please visit their website: https://jessicastockholder.info

In the Studio

Available Works

Additional Links

Jessica Stockholder: Pucker, Lab Grant Publication Series No. 7, Dieu Donné.

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