Artist: Jessica Brandl
Jessica Brandl, Michigan
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Bio
Jessica Brandl is an American contemporary artist of Midwestern origins. Frequent to Brandl’s visual compositions are ominous sky’s, misplaced objects, and looming architecture. These attributes speak to the artist's desire to create a visual analog to the literary genre of magical realism. Through her language of vessels, Brandl’s works occupy an uneasy place between not quite functional and not quite sculpture. Like memento mori, her represented artifacts of recent cultural use are reminders of fleeting existence and a wanton physicality or ugliness.
She holds an MFA in Ceramics from The Ohio State University and a BFA from The Kansas City Art Institute. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally in numerous solo and group exhibitions, most recently a solo show titled “Made for US” shown by the Morean Center for Ceramic Art.
Jessica resides in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where she keeps a fulltime studio and teaches as an Assistant Professor for Western Michigan University.
Artist Statement
My contributions in fired clay mark time spent thinking and considering the visual elements that represent western culture and American-ness. Utilization of the vanitas, the art historic method for representation that imbeds the transience of life, underscoring the temporariness of pleasure and the certainty of death; is an important counterpoint to the often bright and garish pull of logos and banal detritus that I utilize.
For me, the subsequent communion of clutter satisfies the sense of balance and duality in the world, capturing moments from life and preserving feelings that are complex and often informed by many simple interactions.
The research and visual characteristics that define my artwork grow from a sense of personal anxiety, viewing all objects as representative of future archeology. My incorporation of American popular culture began as a means to define familiar characteristics of home while attempting to bridge the phycological turmoil I experience at the physical place. The intentional ambiguity present in finished works is a declaration of social agency, not being the thing which I represent but also not completely divorced from its influence. For me it is important to deconstruct American culture symbols, seeking the intentions for which they were created and examining what biases or stereotypes they perpetuate. To understand what is loved or what is hated is equally an exercise in letting go and for me represents a desire for peace.
education
2009 Master of Fine Arts, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
2006 Bachelor of Fine Arts, Ceramics and Art History, Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, MO
teaching / service
2022 Assistant Professor, Frostic School of Art at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI
2023 Board member, Michigan Ceramic Art Association, MI
grants : awards : distinctions
2020 Joan Lincoln Fellow, Long-term Artist-in-residence, Archie Bray Foundation, Helena, MT
2020 Rudy Autio Grant, Equipment, Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, Helena, MT
2019 Taunt Fellowship, Long-term Artist-in-residence, Archie Bray Foundation, Helena, MT
2018 Alberta University of the Arts, Guest Faculty Grant, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
2017 Zanesville Contemporary Ceramics Prize, First Place Vessel, Zanesville, OH
2017 NCECA-Emerging Artist, Featured Artist, Portland, OR
2017 Windgate Scholar, National Council for the Education of the Ceramic Arts, Future Flux, Portland, OR
2015 NCECA International Residency Award, c.r.e.t.a. Rome, Rome and Pompeii, Italy
2015 McKnight Artist Fellowship, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, MN
2014 Rudy Autio Grant, Funded research trip to Muséum national d'histoire naturell in Paris, France, Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, Helena, MT
2014 Windgate Scholar, Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, Helena, MT
solo exhibitions
2022 Made for US, Featured Artist Exhibition, Morean Art Center, St. Petersburg, FL
2018 Hazard, Featured Artist Exhibition, Belger Crane Yard Studios, Kansas City, MO
2017 Emerging Artist, Featured Artist, NCECA, Portland, OR
2017My Ántonia, LUX Center for the Arts, Lincoln, NE
2017Vice and Virtue, Bonovits Space, The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA
2015 Excavations, Palazzo Cenci, Rhode Island School of Design- Rome, Rome, Italy, collaboration: Bryan Czibesz
2015 Wishful Thinking, Artist-In-Residence Exhibition, Gallery 224, Office for the Arts Harvard, Allston, MA
2015 Jessica Brandl, Featured Artist Exhibition, Charlie Cummings Gallery, Gainesville, FL
2014 Jessica Brandl, Featured Artist Exhibition, Lillstreet Art Center, Chicago, IL
2014 Jessica Brandl, Bonovitz Space + online, The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA
2014 Smithsonian Craft Show, National Building Museum, Washington, DC
2013 Jessica Brandl, Resident Artist Exhibition, Red Star Studios, Belger Art Center, Kansas City, MO
2009 Place, Solo Exhibition, ROY G BIV Gallery, Columbus, OH
selected exhibitions
2019 Flex your muscle, Crane Yard Gallery, Belger Art Center, Kansas City, MO
2017 REDUX, Clay Art Center, Port Chester, NY
2017 We the People: Serving Notice, American Museum of Ceramic Art, Pomona, CA
2017 Put A Bird on It, NCECA: Future Flux, Portland, OR
2016 Transference, The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA
2016 McKnight Resident Artist, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, MN
2016 Ceram-A-Rama, Arizona State University Art Museum Ceramic Research Center, Tempe/ Phoenix, AZ
2016 Unconventional Clay: Engaged in Change, NCECA Invitational, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO
2016 Dino-Might, Box Gallery, NCECA, Kansas City, MO
2016 From There to Here, Box Marietta Chair Building, NCECA, Kansas City, MO
2016 Pixels, Voxels, Lux Center for the Arts, Lincoln, NE
2015 Salad Days Exhibit, NCECA, New Bedford Art Museum, New Bedford, MA
2014 Ceramics Biennial Exhibition, New Hampshire Institute of Art, Manchester, NH
2014 Home Team, Gallery 224, Office of the Arts at Harvard, Harvard University, Allston, MA
2014 Ceramic Top 40, Gallery 224, Office of the Arts at Harvard, Harvard University, Allston, MA
2014 The Clay Studio National, The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA
2013 Ceramic Top 40, Red Star Studios, Belger Art Center, Kansas City, MO, Curated by Leslie Ferrin
2013 Watershed Salad Days Tent Exhibition, Watershed Ceramic Arts Center, Newcastle, ME
residencies
2020 Joan Lincoln Fellow, Long-Term Artist in Residence, Archie Bray Foundation, Helena, MT
2019 Taunt fellow Long-term Artist-in-Residence, Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, Helena, MT
2018 Artist-in-Residence - Guest Professor, Alberta University of Art, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
2017 Artist-in-Residence, Arrowmont, Pentaculum, Gatlinburg, TN
2016 Artist-in-Residence, Tyler School of Art at Temple University, Philadelphia, PA
2015 NCECA International Residency, c.r.e.t.a. Rome, Rome and Pompeii, Italy
2015 McKnight Artist Fellowship Artist-in-Residence, Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, MN
2014 Artist-in-Residence, Office for the Arts at Harvard, Harvard University, Allston, MA
2014 Windgate Scholar Artist-in-Residence, Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, Helena, MT
2013 Artist-in-Residence, Armory Art Center, West Palm Beach, FL
2013 Salad Days Artist-in-Residence, Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Newcastle, ME
2011 Artist-in-Residence, Red Star Studios, Kansas City, MO
2005 Open Studio Residency, International Ceramics Studio, Kecskémet, Hungary
selected collections
2018 Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY
2016 New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA
2015 Rosenfield Art Foundation of Texas, Dallas, TX
2014 Kamm Teapot Foundation, Philadelphia, PA
2014 The Archie Bray Foundation for Ceramic Arts, Helena, MT
2012 Belger Collection, Kansas City, MO