- Jessica Jackson Hutchins
When you look at Jessica Jackson Hutchins' work, you might catch your breath: it's raw, a little gross, and never precious. She traffics in ideas of domesticity and gender with an honesty and lack of pretense, using ceramics and found objects—think ceramic vessels and papier-mâché piled on top of a couch—almost to the point of collapse.
It's been some time since Hutchins has had a solo show in Portland (although she was featured in the 2014 Portland Biennial). After living in Germany with her kids and husband (musician Stephen Malkmus), Hutchins' work has risen to international acclaim. She had the honor of having her projects in the 2013 Venice Biennale as well as the 2010 Whitney Biennial, a major benchmark of success in the contemporary art world. She's back in Portland now, and it's exciting to see her pieces in a new exhibition, Confessions, open through November 8, with pieces at both Lumber Room and Reed College's Cooley Gallery.
Hutchins' art is assemblage in the Robert Rauschenberg tradition, but it's also post-minimalism, with an Eva Hesse style.
