About:
My practice looks at home, though home is never just one thing. It is a word stretched thin by longing, a memory lit by the flicker of something almost familiar. It hides in the creases of a tablecloth, the smell of burnt wax, or the strange comfort of a drawer that doesn’t quite shut. For those who have been displaced, uprooted, or confined, home takes on a peculiar shimmer: a thing that is there and not there, a lighthouse and a ghost.
I collect pieces of this shimmer. Like a scavenger or a caddisfly, I gather what the world leaves behind—scraps of paper mapped with fleeting thoughts, fragments of peeling walls, small treasures found on walks, objects abandoned to quiet corners. These remnants come together as drawings, objects, and stories, layered with sounds that hum with echoes of other rooms, other times.
The work hovers somewhere between belonging and not belonging, pulling at the threads of home’s fragility. It maps the dissonance between the pure, golden image of childhood homecomings and the jagged edges of adult reality. I explore how we make meaning from the objects and spaces that surround us, offering a meditation on the ways home continues to shape and reshape who we are. It’s about what happens when the floorboards crack, when the walls we thought were solid dissolve into dust and memory. The pieces seek to reconcile contradictions, merging personal experiences, collective histories, and emotional landscapes to reflect on belonging, loss, and the yearning for stability.
In these fragments, I try to stitch together something whole; an installation, a moment, a gesture. Something that feels, even for a fleeting second, like home, or at least the shadow it casts when the light is just right.
Jessica Ostrowicz (Birmingham, UK), is an artist and prison lecturer.
Education:
- MA in Contemporary Art Practice- Critical Practice, Royal College of Art, London
- Fine Art Diplom with specialism in painting, Academy of Fine Art, Dresden, Germany
Current / Upcoming
2025
‘I Wish I Was (Homeward Bound)’, Nogallery, Berlin
10 Year Anniversary, Kunsthaus Dahlem, Berlin
Past exhibitions:
2024
‘I Wish I Was (Homeward Bound')’, Nogallery, Berlin
Artist Residency, Cordts Art Foundation, Berlin
2023
‘Out of the Box’, East Quay Gallery, Watchet
2022
‘Pack up the Moon’ - The Steamship PS, London
2021
‘Deptford X’ - New Cross Road, Deptford Broadway, London'
‘A Rose (is a rose)’ VR exhibition with Kajiado Rescue Centre, Berlin
2020
‘Butterfly Blue Goodbye’ - Brixton Beneficiary, London
‘Family Business’ - Centrum Judaicum, Berlin
2019
Arts Council England public art commission for Contains Art - Watchet, England
'74 Years' - Goodnestone Park, Kent, England
‘Pale Fire' - Galerie Plan D, Dusseldorf, Germany
2018
‘Graduate Show 2018' - Royal College of Art, London
2017
‘The Dodo and the Seed' - Siobhan Davies Dance Studios, London
‘WIP Show' - Royal College of Art, London
‘Kunst Messe' - Old Slaughter House, Dresden, Germany
2016
'Intervention' - Kunsthaus Dahlem, Berlin, Germany
'Diplomausstellung' - Oktogon, Academy of Fine Art, Dresden, Germany
'When Is An Egg Not An Egg? - Galerias da Casa do Artista, Gois, Portugal
'Hat Stick Shoe' - Raizvanguarda, Bordeiro, Portugal (residency)
'I Woke Up Like This' - Senatssaal, Dresden, Germany
2015
'Yours Sincerely' - The Dome, Moscow, Russia
2014
'Postcards from the East' - APT Gallery, London, England
'Pigs in Paris' - Hole of Fame, Dresden, Germany
'Dada Ty' - European Centre for Culture, Hellerau, Germany
2013
'Plural Projekt' - Atelierhof Kreuzberg, Berlin, Germany
Selected Texts and Reviews:
‘Klagemauer aus Backpapier’ - a text on Wailing Wall and Family Business at Centrum Judaicum, Berlin
by Katharina Schmidt-Hirschfelder
https://www.juedische-allgemeine.de/gemeinden/klagemauer-aus-backpapier/
‘It Stays in the Family’- a text on Family Business at Centrum Judaicum, Berlin
by Gareth Joswig
https://taz.de/Ausstellung-in-der-Neuen-Synagoge-Berlin/!5653683/
'Pale Fire' - a text for Pale Fire at Galerie Plan D, Dusseldorf
by Matthew Turner
'Dismember :: Remember' - a text on Cleave
by Matthew Turner
https://www.rca.ac.uk/students/jessica-ostrowicz/
'The Dodo and the Seed' - a catalogue text on Flight Test at Siobhan Davies Dance Studios, London
by Kit Webb
'Intervention!' a catalogue text on I and Not a Seraph at Kunsthaus Dahlem, Berlin
by Alice de Tourdonnet
Teaching/Workshops/Talks
2024 - ‘Spurensuche ins Jetzt’, two workshops for Kunsthaus Dahlem and Museum Sunday, funded by Berlin Senate for Culture and Social Cohesion’s Action Fund Against Antisemitism
2023 - Art Lecturer, HMP Bullingdon
2021 - ‘Uprootedness and Hybridity’ lecture, hosted by Counterpoints Arts, London, as part of Refugee Week 2021
2018 - Visiting Artist Talk, Royal College of Art, London, UK
2014 - Artist Lecture, The Dome, Moscow, Russia
Grants and Awards
2024 - Berlin Senate for Culture and Social Cohesion’s ‘Action Fund Against Antisemitism’ for two workshops with Kunsthaus Dahlem
2023 - Recipient of Arts Council England’s DYCP Grant for ‘Antecedent Wayfinders’
2022 - Recipient of Cordts Stiftung, Cordts Art Foundation
2020 - Recipient of ‘Time Space Money’ grant from A-N and Arts Council England for project: ‘Sonorous Bones: An Archive of Exhales’
2019 - Arts Council England project grant for ‘Ode to Yankee Jack’