Jessica Stockholder facts for kids

Jessica Stockholder, Lay of the Land, an art piece from 2019. It uses everyday items like orange plastic baskets, mirrors, and a rug.

Jessica Stockholder (born in 1959) is a Canadian-American artist. She is famous for her unique art installations and sculptures. People often call her work "paintings in space."

Her art became well-known in the early 1990s. She creates very large pieces that mix art with the space around it. Her works often use bright colors, different textures, and everyday objects. They can cover floors, walls, and ceilings, sometimes even going outside the art gallery!

Art experts say her work is inspired by many art styles. These include abstract expressionism (art that shows feelings with colors and shapes), color field painting (large areas of flat color), minimalism (simple art), and Pop art (art using popular culture).

Jessica Stockholder's art shows a lot of freedom. She likes to use unexpected things and doesn't worry about making art that lasts forever or is very expensive.

Her art has been shown in many famous places. These include the Dia Art Foundation, Centre Pompidou, Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Venice Biennale. Her work is also in major museums like the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the British Museum. She has won many awards, including the Guggenheim Fellowship. Jessica Stockholder lives in Nanaimo, Canada, with her husband, Patrick Chamberlain.

Early Life and Art Journey

Jessica Stockholder was born in Seattle in 1959. She grew up in Vancouver, Canada. Her parents were university professors.

As a teenager, she took drawing lessons from a sculptor named Mowry Baden. She later studied art formally with him at the University of Victoria. She earned her first art degree there in 1982.

While studying, she focused on painting. But she also explored new ways to make art beyond a simple picture frame. She started using objects and the space around them. This idea is still important in her art today.

One early artwork, Installation in My Father's Backyard (1983), is a good example. She painted objects and attached them to her father's garage. These included a mattress, a cupboard door, and even a patch of painted grass!

In 1983, Stockholder went to Yale University. She studied with famous artists like Judy Pfaff and Ursula von Rydingsvard. She earned her master's degree in 1985.

Her art at Yale often felt temporary and blurred the lines between art and the building it was in. Her later Kissing the Wall sculptures (1987–90) continued this idea. These were stand-alone objects that used mirrors and lights. They cast colored light onto walls, making the space part of the art.

After graduating, Stockholder moved to Brooklyn. She became well-known in the late 1980s. Her art was shown in important galleries and museums. These included PS1, the Whitney Museum, and the Renaissance Society.

Other Art Activities

Jessica Stockholder has also organized several art shows. Some of these shows featured her own work, and others showed art by different artists. These exhibitions took place at places like the Tang Museum and the Centraal Museum.

From 1999 to 2011, Stockholder was a professor at Yale University. She led the graduate sculpture program. Later, from 2011 to 2018, she was in charge of the Visual Arts Department at the University of Chicago. She retired from teaching in 2024.

Awards and Collections

Jessica Stockholder has received many important awards for her art. These include a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1996. She also won awards from the Smithsonian American Art Museum in 2007 and the Anonymous Was A Woman award in 2012. She has also received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.

In 2011, she was chosen to be part of the National Academy of Design. She also received honorary doctorate degrees from two art colleges.

Her artwork is part of many public collections. These are museums where people can go and see her art. In the United States, her work is at MoMA, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Whitney Museum. Internationally, her art is in the British Museum, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.

In 2021, her work was featured in a special exhibition. This show, called Women in Abstraction, was held at the Centre Pompidou.