Clay is Just Thick Paint, Jennifer Rochlin

Clay is Just Thick Paint
Jennifer Rochlin
Angelik Vizcarrondo-Laboy (curator)
Artist/Curator Talk | Friday, February 21, 2020 | 4:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Opening Reception | Friday, February 21, 2020 | 5:00 – 7:00 p.m.
Exhibition on view through March 20, 2020

The Jane Hartsook Gallery is pleased to present new work by Jennifer Rochlin, curated by Angelik Vizcarrondo-Laboy. Aptly titled Clay Is Just Thick Paint after a quotation from artist Peter Voulkos, this exhibition argues for the equality of clay and paint as artistic materials. Trained as a painter, Rochlin began working with clay in 2007 and now exclusively works with the medium. This exhibition features ten of her hand-built pots and reliefs, each of which tells a story about love, lust or longing.

Rochlin’s pots and reliefs highlight her interest in storytelling and the human body. The former are metaphors for the body, each having its own lumps and imperfections. Every piece in this exhibition is a memory embodied. Rochlin covers her pots’ surfaces with vignettes whose painterly quality alludes to the way impressions often take precedent over details in our recollections. As viewers experience the pots in the round, they encounter scenes unbound by chronological order, just as personal memories often arise out of sequence. Even Rochlin’s construction methods connect to storytelling; the pinches and pokes she uses to give her pots form mirror the hand gestures storytellers use to punctuate their narratives.

Jennifer Rochlin (born 1968 in Baltimore, MD) is a Los Angeles-based artist working in ceramics and painting. She has had solo exhibitions at Geary Contemporary (New York, NY; 2019), Lefebvre & Fils (Paris, France; 2018), The Pit (Los Angeles, CA; 2018) and Black Dragon Society (Los Angeles, CA; 2007). Rochlin’s work has been featured in numerous group and two-person shows such as Paintings and Pots, The Green Gallery (Milwaukee, WI; 2018); Jennifer Rochlin/Gene Moreno, Institute of Visual Arts, University of Milwaukee (WI; 2007); Home Show, Revisited, Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum (CA; 2011), Open Daybook, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (CA; 2011); MKE-LAX, Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design (WI; 2012); Venice Beach Biennial, in conjunction with Made in LA, Hammer Museum (Los Angeles, CA; 2012) and Sculptures, 356 Mission (Los Angeles, CA; 2013). Rochlin is the recipient of the Individual Artist Grant from the Belle Foundation (2015) and the Durfee Foundation ARC Grant (2007) and has had residencies at Lefebvre & Fils (Versailles, France; 2018) and Civitella Ranieri (Umbria, Italy; 2019).

Angelik Vizcarrondo-Laboy (born 1992 in San Juan, Puerto Rico) is a New York-based curator, writer and arts administrator focusing on contemporary art and craft, with an emphasis on ceramics. She serves as Assistant Curator at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), New York. Since 2016, she has been part of MAD’s curatorial team, helping to organize over nineteen exhibitions and installations. She also manages MAD’s Burke Prize, a contemporary craft award, and curates its accompanying exhibition. She is a 2020 Curatorial Fellow at the Center for Craft (Asheville, NC), where she is curating Sleight of Hand, a group show of ceramics that demonstrate the power of humor as a tool of resistance, resilience and healing. She holds an MA from the Bard Graduate Center in Decorative Arts, Design History & Material Culture and a BA in Art History from the University of Florida, with minors in Anthropology and Ceramics.

Download the press release here.

Jennifer Rochlin and Angelik Vizcarrondo-Laboy will be giving an artist talk from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. on February 21 before the opening reception. Please register to reserve your seat for the talk. The talk is free and open to the public.

To reserve your seat, register now.

Special edition exhibition zine here. Contact pottery@greenwichhouse.org for a print copy.

Images: © Alan Wiener, courtesy of Greenwich House Pottery, 2020.