Jessica Stockholder Essay

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Jessica Stockholder

In order to aid in the interpretation of one’s self expression, the interpreter must first have knowledge of the self that is responsible for the work they aim to interpret. This very belief is the foundation behind why a person must first ask: “Who is Jessica Stockholder?”. Only after answering this question will the materials, methods, and messages behind Stockholder’s art have true meaning.
Jessica Stockholder, a site-specific sculptor and instillation artist, was born in 1959 in Seattle, Washington. She received a degree in painting from Victoria, British Columbia, Canada’s University of Victoria, and went on to receive a Mater of Fine Arts degree from New Haven Connecticut’s Yale University. Here she would later …show more content…

Nevertheless, “critics have described Stockholder as part of a genre of artists who incorporate “unpretentious, everyday objects” into large-scale installation and sculpture” (Bourbon). These everyday objects such as plastic bags, carpets, extension cords, containers, etc., act as Stockholder’s primary materials, and are placed strategically in order to “[draw] attention to [their] aesthetic and formal qualities” (Stockholder). Furthermore, Stockholder accomplishes this through her use of paint as a manipulation method; a use that has allowed her to “[play] a crucial role in expanding the dialogue between sculpture and painting and form and space” (“Jessica Stockholder”). Ultimately, she remains responsible for the creation of works that utilize color, characterized by eye-catching hues, various values, and often high intensities, as their primary element. In addition to this ever-present element, Stockholder employs a heavy use of the principle of movement created by the variety of different shapes, textures, colors, and values in her work. Together, they act as an embodiment of the purpose behind her work. According to Stockholder, this purpose is to “[ascertain] just what the nature of [her] experience is and [notice] how the world [she lives] in is meaningful in a very direct way” while maintaining “concerned about the nature of the objects [she makes] use of”

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