Jesse Mockrin. A story told this many times becomes the forest, 2025. Oil on linen, 49 x 99 inches (124.5 x 251.5 cm) overall. Courtesy the Artist and James Cohan Gallery
Spotlight: Jesse Mockrin
APRIL 9-MAY 17, 2025
The Spotlight series includes a new or never-before-exhibited artwork paired with a commissioned piece of writing, creating focused and thoughtful conversations between the visual arts and authors, critics, poets, scholars, and beyond. In this iteration, the Spotlight features Jesse Mockrin’s A story told this many times becomes the forest, 2025. The title of the work comes from the poem Daphne pursued by Apollo by Sophia Stid (2020). A text by author Carmen Maria Machado accompanies the presentation.
About:
Jesse Mockrin (b. 1981, Silver Spring, MD) is an artist living and working in Philadelphia, PA. Mockrin earned her BA from Barnard College, Columbia University, New York, NY, in 2003 and her MFA from the University of California at San Diego, San Diego, CA, in 2011. Recent solo exhibitions include The Venus Effect, James Cohan Gallery, New York, NY (2023); Succession, curated by Viahsta Yuan, Center of International Contemporary Art, Vancouver, Canada (2023); Reliquary, Night Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2022); The marks of a stranger, Nathalie Karg Gallery, New York, NY (2019); Syrinx, Night Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2018); among others. Mockrin has been included in numerous group exhibitions, including Behind the Bedroom Door, James Cohan, New York, NY (2025); Inside/Outside, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA (2023); Film Noir, curated by Thelma Golden and Anne Pasternak, The Bunker, West Palm Beach, FL (2022); Beyond the Looking Glass, UTA Artist Space, Los Angeles, CA (2021); European Collections: Special Presentation, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX (2019); among others. Mockrin’s work is included in numerous public collections, including the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada; Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Rubell Collection, Miami, FL; and Xiao Museum, Rizhao, China.
Carmen Maria Machado (b. 1986, Allentown, PA) is an author living and working in Philadelphia, PA. Machado is the author of the bestselling memoir In the Dream House (2019), the graphic novel The Low, Low Woods (2020), and the award-winning short story collection Her Body and Other Parties (2017). She has been a finalist for the National Book Award and the winner of the Bard Fiction Prize, the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction, the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Nonfiction, the Brooklyn Public Library Literature Prize, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Prize. Machado’s essays, fiction, poetry, and criticism have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Granta, Vogue, This American Life, Harper’s Bazaar, Tin House, McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, The Believer, Guernica, Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy, Best American Nonrequired Reading, and elsewhere. She has been awarded fellowships and residencies from the Guggenheim Foundation, The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and the Millay Colony for the Arts. Machado is the former Abrams Artist-in-Residence at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.