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(Hollywood, CA—July 25, 2005) It is a rarity in the career of a young artist to enjoy the wondrous success that painter Jennifer Rae Ochs has already achieved. Her original abstract expressionist paintings have attracted glowing attention from gallery owners and collectors in Los Angeles and others amongst the southwestern States as well as abroad.
It is even more of a rarity to discover that this exciting taste of success has had a positive affect, helping to encourage, strengthen and deepen Ochs’ connection with her art.
“The real constant for me is a commitment to being authentic in my expression,” says Ochs in her Hollywood studio that is filled with her latest works and those still in the midst of creation.
“I always try to be conscious of the energy that goes into a piece, and in that sense each one is also a kind of personal diary... what I’m feeling and experiencing,” she adds. “When I work on the same piece for two months I’m certainly not in the same personal space every single time I pick up a brush or splash the paint around. But I realize that this work is also hanging in my collectors’ homes, in their private space, so I want that to be positive.”
“A lot has changed in the past couple of years,” says Ochs. “This past year especially has been one blessing after another and has been filled with many random surprises. I feel my work is getting even better and I think part of that comes from confidence.”
Ochs has every reason to take that confidence to heart. With three confirmed exhibitions and a growing list of patrons, the attention and momentum of her career are definitely building.
In that spirit, “I.Forward” is the aptly named title of Ochs’ upcoming solo exhibition in Los Angeles, opening September 17 at the BGH Gallery in Santa Monica’s renowned Bergamot Station. Following the tremendous success of her showing there last fall, titled “Emerging Intent,” BGH Gallery invited Ochs to return and command her first solo exhibit.
“I.Forward” will premiere her most recent original creations. She will also include her first light-installation piece, titled “u-vism,” a piece she created specifically for a Hollywood pop art gallery showing in April.
On the international front, Ochs was excited to accept an invitation to exhibit her work at the prestigious Sejong Center in Seoul, Korea this August as part of an international festival of the arts. Plans are also in the works for an exhibition in Orange County, California and for other American and international shows in 2006.
Ochs credits her exhibition at BGH Gallery last fall for being a springboard for the year that has followed. “I received a tremendous amount of support and attention from ‘Emerging Intent,’” notes Ochs. “I was getting phone calls telling me that this piece sold and that piece sold. A couple took one piece back to their home in Bel Air to live with it for a while, and ultimately loved it. Another couple was shipping a piece back to Texas. The response was amazing and a bit dizzying.”
“’Emerging Intent’ was a perfect name for that show,” Ochs continues. “For me as an artist, there’s still an emerging intent, but certainly in the past year there has been a lot of forward motion. I think ‘I.Forward’ expresses where I feel I am.”
Some of the past year’s “random surprises” have included new commissions from patrons in Pasadena and Beverly Hills.
“It’s interesting to visit someone in their home, to be open to feeling their personalities and their tastes and preferences,” says Ochs, discussing the experience of meeting new clients. “When there’s not only one person but a husband and wife, for example, there are different chemistries there. You get to feel it out, take paint samples and talk about styles. It’s amazing to have the freedom to go from that, to then create something abstract with those choices and perceptions in mind.”
Ochs has chosen to take a very positive spin on the affects of her success. “My social life and everything has changed for me,” she says. “I generally don’t make plans to go out unless it’s related to my art and what I’m doing.”
“The biggest shift for me is my relationship to the actual process, of when it happens and how long I stay with it,” Ochs notes. “I used to tell myself, ‘I can only paint at nighttime,’ or, ‘Oh, I feel like painting tonight.’ Now, I feel I’ve become more disciplined and at the same time more meditative about it. It’s about what I do to get into the right space to create, the habits of turning the phones off, making new rituals for the ways to enter the private space where I’m painting.”
“Often, I find myself spending more time layering, focusing on what, for me, is the harmony of color,” observes Ochs. “While I seem to be taking my commitment to the process more seriously, I think that a lot of my work has gotten more playful. I think that’s good because, to me, it’s a sign that I’m letting go even more. I suppose it’s a gradual process of trusting my instincts. The work is playful and yet still alluring. I certainly want it all to be healthy and good energy.”
As an expressionist painter, Ochs is accustomed to the full gamut of reactions to her work. By definition, expressionism depicts not objective reality but rather the subjective emotions and responses that are aroused in the artist by events and objects. Ochs’ paintings certainly seem to connect emotion and unseen energies in an evocative dance on canvas, employing a charismatic style and a daring and profound use of color.
“I think it’s everyone’s battle not to concern yourself with what others think or feel,” observes Ochs. “It’s an everyday battle for an artist or anyone, really. Exhibiting my work more and more has been a great exercise for me to not even try to concern myself with other’s reactions because, if you do, you won’t do anything. You certainly won’t be able to create anything.”
So, the question arises about Ochs’ reaction to the work of other artists.
“I try to get to different openings and receptions around town,” she responds. “I go to see what else is out there at galleries in Mid-Wilshire, Koreatown, downtown LA, The Brewery or in Santa Monica. I used to think that you had to seek out other art for inspiration but now I think you just have to do it. I think inspiration is instinctual. I suppose it comes from people in your life, even from the mundane day to day activities of the life we lead. It just happens naturally.”
Ochs, however, has lead a far from mundane life by most people’s standards. Hailing from a closely-knit family in Minnesota that imprinted her with a strong sense of origin and balance, she had a wanderlust that surfaced at a very young age.
“For my birthdays, my parents indulged my biggest wish, which was for airline tickets so I could travel,” recalls Ochs, still smiling from the memories. After travelling through Europe numerous times she took her own route through Australia by backpack.
“People I met on the train would make suggestions about where to stop. It was fantastically random,” Ochs explains. “That was how I found myself in Byron Bay spending days with a group of monks and then staying with a commune of hippies on the eastern coast of Australia. I toured to sand islands, went scuba diving around the Great Barrier Reef and had a completely amazing time.”
“ In South America I hung out with jungle folk and shamans and was very blessed with some extraordinary experiences,” she continues. “That’s the glory of travel, meeting different people and immersing yourself in other cultures, in other ways of seeing the world. In each new place it feels like your eyes and your senses are forced open at all times.”
While her artistic schedule has precluded travel in recent years, Ochs seems to have found a way to let her art take her back onto the global circuit, beginning with her forthcoming showing in Seoul, Korea.
“The Sejong Center is a gorgeous building, with a design like a magnificent temple,” explains Ochs. “The Center has a gallery, an opera hall and a theatre. The “Today & Tomorrow Artshow” this August will feature paintings, sculpture and photography from artists around the world. I’m thrilled to be a part of that and also to see where it may lead. I was very honored to accept the invitation to exhibit at the Sejong Center.”
One of the contacts Ochs made at her “Emerging Intent” exhibit led her into a new area of creation that she has been intrigued to explore. “U-vism” is her title for a pop-art and abstract light installation piece she will include as part of “I.Forward.
“At my show, I met the owner of a pop art gallery in Hollywood called La-La Land,” recalls Ochs. “As we were talking, he told me about his show that was coming up in April. I liked the idea of the challenge to create something for the show, and it turned out to be a three-month artistic journey for me.”
“The exhibition was to be presented entirely in Black-light and so they supplied all of the artists with fluorescent paints from a special effects company in Hollywood,” says Ochs. “I moved from canvases to Plexiglas and started wandering around Home Depot and various hobby shops, changing the design from an original concept of a three-layered piece to a light installation with a mirrored, corrugated background.”
“I couldn’t really use brushes on the PVC material, so I called a friend of mine who owns a medical supply company and asked for some feeding syringes,” says Ochs. “That was the trick for me, to use the fluorescent paint in an abstract design within a pop art presentation. I’ve thought of modifying the concept for some other future pieces, using custom lights and custom-made forms for the background. I don’t know what direction it’s headed, but it’s interesting. I enjoy it as an extension of my abstract expression.”
The openness Ochs has to new forms of expression is a hallmark of her work as a young artist and, indeed, to the philosophy she applies to her life; embracing the spectrum of experience and channeling the vibrancy of her connection into her work. No matter where it may be taking her, she has certainly chosen an apt motto: “I.Forward.”
“I.Forward,” the solo exhibition of the Abstract Expressionist paintings of Jennifer Rae Ochs, debuts on Saturday, September 17, 2005 with an opening reception from 6pm to 9pm at BGH Gallery. The exhibition runs through October 16. BGH Gallery is located at Bergamot Station, Building D4, 2525 Michigan Avenue, Santa Monica. The Gallery is open to the public Tuesday through Saturday from 11am to 6pm and Sunday from 11am to 5pm. To contact the gallery, call Amy Delaporte at (310) 453-8013.
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