MOCA is thrilled to present a major new commission by the groundbreaking American-Canadian artist Jessica Stockholder. Titled The Squared Circle: Ringing, this project marks the artist's return to Canada after many years in the United States, where her work and teaching have inspired new generations of artists.
Since the 1980s, Stockholder has played a pivotal role in expanding the dialogue between painting and sculpture, blending attentive use of vibrant colours with architecture and unassuming objects in sensational ways. Across institutions, galleries, and outdoor public spaces, she has transformed everyday items such as plastic bags, shopping carts, lamps, furniture, and vehicles, among other materials, into compositions described by art critic Michael Kimmelman as "exuberantly operatic in scale and emotion."
This spring, visitors on Floor 1 are invited to experience a new large-scale, site-specific artwork by Stockholder, alongside a series of text-based gestures. Revisiting elements from her 2021 installation Cut a rug a round square, Stockholder will further explore the interplay between material, colour, and perspective to transform the space into an immersive experience. Incorporating poetic writing into her practice, she will engage with the museum's various messages, altering and interrupting them to shift viewers' attention toward the formal beauty and complexity of language.
Often referred to as "paintings in space," her works resist quick observation; their depth and scale invite gradual exploration from different vantage points, continuously revealing new elements. Executed with a balance of planning and on-site intuition, Stockholder enters into various thinking processes, embracing unpredictability. As a result, her work resists easy categorization, existing at the intersection of abstract expressionism, colour field painting, minimalism, and theatre.
