Jennifer Rochlin

Jennifer Rochlin (b. 1968 in Baltimore, Maryland; lives and works in Los Angeles, California) received her MFA in painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1999. Inspired by a ceramic program that she was developing at a local school, she started experimenting with transposing her imagery from the canvas to the clay. Gradually, Rochlin became more interested in the way that sculptures could work with narrative, so the vessels became the container of the story.

 

Rochlin’s pots are created by gradually building up coils of clay in a spiraling fashion, through which the marks of her hand are left imprinted on the surface of the clay. For this reason, her pots possess a distinctive form, with their motifs at times depicted in response to those forms, weaving a story in three-dimensional space. The lush flora and fauna of California are often taken up as a motif. Other motifs include pop-cultural references, decorative patterns, personal narratives, and art-historical references such as Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, giving a new context to a world-famous artwork that has been prized for centuries. The artist’s work, which combines the positive aspects of two-dimensional painting and three-dimensional pottery, has garnered acclaim for its richness of expression.

 

Rochlin’s recent solo exhibitions include Suns and Lovers, Mariane Ibrahim (Paris, 2024); Paintings on Clay, Hauser & Wirth (New York, 2024); P-22, SHRINE (New York, 2022); Foothills, Sorry We’re Closed (Brussels, 2022); California dreamin’ - “On such a winter’s day”, MAKI Gallery (Tokyo, 2020); and Jennifer Rochlin, The Pit (Glendale, 2020). She also actively shows her work in group exhibitions and art fairs across the globe.