Short Bio
Jenny Rosen is a Bay-Area-based ceramic artist. Casting techniques form the basis of her practice. Her conceptually dense work evokes shared, perhaps uncomfortable, human experience.
Biography
Jenny Rosen was born in Oakland and raised in the Bay Area. The experience of being a bi-cultural child who spoke Spanish before English while living in Davis, California gave Rosen an innate understanding of living a both/and life in an either/or world and a deep appreciation for non-linguistic means of communication, including the visual arts.
After completing graduate studies in English, Rosen worked as an editor for several years, then returned to visual communication by studying ceramics at the California College of the Arts. Text and word play figure into her artwork with titles adding an additional layer of meaning or humor.
As a sculptor Rosen mines individual and collective memory to make work that serves both to explore meaning and as a means of being heard. Mold making and casting techniques form the basis of her practice, through which she fixes moments in time metaphorically and physically. By casting evocative objects, she seeks to capture and transform personal experience into one that is less particular and speaks to a shared, perhaps uncomfortable, human experience.
Bridging divides between disparate perceptions is central to her practice. The casts balance simplicity of form with obsessive refinement by hand, and conceptual significance with formal qualities. The work breaks down meaning and creates it at the same time, offering space for a moment of contemplative observation in an era when it has become increasingly difficult to satisfy that need.
Resume / CV
Jenny Rosen received a BA from the University of California at Berkeley, an MA from UCLA, and a BFA from the California College of the Arts. Her work has been shown at the Craft in America Center in Los Angeles, the American Museum of Ceramic Art in Pomona, California, the Oakland Museum of California, and the American Craft Council show in San Francisco. It has also been mentioned in Handful of Salt, a Bay-Area-based design magazine that explores the craft of modern design, and on the KCRW Design & Architecture blog curated out of Los Angeles.