Elson Lecture 2015: Jessica Stockholder

Jessica Stockholder, artist and Raymond W. and Martha Hilpert Gruner Distinguished Service Professor and chair of the department of visual arts, division of humanities, University of Chicago. Since the early 1990s, Jessica Stockholder has been recognized as one of the leading and most influential artists of her generation. Characterized by the colorful arrangements of found and made materials, her multimedia, site-dependent, and autonomous works delight the eye and engage the mind. Described as "paintings in space," Stockholder's complex installations sometimes appear chaotic at first glance but gradually reveal, with careful observation, the artist's decisive strategies. Whether incorporating the architecture of its conception, climbing walls, hanging from the ceiling, or spilling out of doors and windows, Stockholder's art explores new pictorial possibilities—affirming the physicality of objects and their relationship to the mind and body in diverse, connected experiences. Her work is represented in the National Gallery of Art collection by Untitled (1994), a gift of the Women's Committee of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Stockholder presented the 22nd annual Elson Lecture on April 2, 2015.