Art21 Extended Play

Jessica Stockholder | Becoming An Artist

Artist Jessica Stockholder recounts her earliest memories of wanting to become an artist while she and her son Charlie paint and draw in the basement of their home in New Haven, Connecticut.

A pioneer of multimedia genre-bending installations, Jessica Stockholder’s site-specific interventions and autonomous floor and wall pieces have been described as “paintings in space.” Her work is energetic, cacophonous, and idiosyncratic, but closer observation reveals formal decisions about color and composition, and a tempering of chaos with control.

Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Mead Hunt. Sound: Merce Williams. Editor: Mary Ann Toman. Artwork Courtesy: Jessica Stockholder. Special Thanks: Charles Pippin Chamberlain.