Jason Stern
jasonsstern@gmail.com
Instagram: jason_pottery


I am a craft-based sculptor and printmaker based in Oakland, California. My work explores ecological themes and our relationship with our wildlands and their inhabitants. I’m interested in meditating on the aesthetic and subjective experiences of wildlife & wildlands through sculpture that plays with absurd or unusual use of materials and scale. What can the embodied experience of making tell us about our wildlands that science cannot?

My work is deeply rooted in Craft; it is important to me that the work of my hands is visible in every piece.  Perfection is not something I am for.  Your tactile experience with the object I make is much more important to me.  My work is meant to be touched.

CV


SELECTED WORK - Works on Paper 


Monocultures: Tomatillos 

This work examines monoculture as both ecological scar and provisional refuge. It draws from the history of human intervention in our local landscapes.  These Tomatillos grow wild in my yard in Oakland, California. They are both non-native but create new habitats for my local ecosystem.

Rather than proposing restoration or purity, this work sits with the discomfort of inherited landscapes. It asks how species, including humans, continue to live, migrate, and nest within environments that no longer resemble what they once were. Monoculture becomes less a failure than a record of consequence, a living archive of decisions made long before the present moment.





Reduction woodblock print on Rives BFK

38in x 18in

2023






002—Lupines for the Birds 


This work examines monoculture as both ecological scar and provisional refuge. It draws from the history of human intervention in our local landscapes.  These Nasturtiums grow wild in my yard in Oakland, California. Often framed as invasive or corrective, the monoculture resists simple moral reading. It erases diversity while simultaneously enabling new forms of life.

Rather than proposing restoration or purity, this work sits with the discomfort of inherited landscapes. It asks how species, including humans, continue to live, migrate, and nest within environments that no longer resemble what they once were. Monoculture becomes less a failure than a record of consequence, a living archive of decisions made long before the present moment.



Reduction woodblock print on Rives BFK

30in x 15in

2023





Monocultures: Sundhöll Siglufjarðar (Iceland)

This work examines monoculture as both ecological scar and provisional refuge. It draws from the history of human intervention in Icelandic landscapes. Often framed as invasive or corrective, the monoculture resists simple moral reading. It erases diversity while simultaneously enabling new forms of life.

Rather than proposing restoration or purity, this work sits with the discomfort of inherited landscapes. It asks how species, including humans, continue to live, migrate, and nest within environments that no longer resemble what they once were. Monoculture becomes less a failure than a record of consequence, a living archive of decisions made long before the present moment.


Reduction woodblock print on Rives BFK

30in x 15in

2023



Monocultures: Lupine

This work examines monoculture as both ecological scar and provisional refuge. It draws from the history of human intervention in Icelandic landscapes, where a single introduced species, lupine, spread rapidly across damaged ground, replacing lost forests with a uniform, purple skin. Often framed as invasive or corrective, the monoculture resists simple moral reading. It erases diversity while simultaneously enabling new forms of life.

Rather than proposing restoration or purity, this work sits with the discomfort of inherited landscapes. It asks how species, including humans, continue to live, migrate, and nest within environments that no longer resemble what they once were. Monoculture becomes less a failure than a record of consequence, a living archive of decisions made long before the present moment.



Reduction woodblock print on Rives BFK

30in x 15in

2023




Monocultures: Tomatillos (VA with gold)

Similar to the original print but with gold halos inspired by religious symbolism.  

Reduction woodblock print on Rives BFK

38in x 18in

2023



40 Degree Day


40 Degree Day shows an indoor houseplant living in a carefully controlled world. Kept alive through routine and attention, it grows without weather, season, or choice. Its form repeats, steady and contained.

The plant becomes a small, domestic monoculture, shaped by care and convenience, quietly adapting to an artificial calm.




Reduction woodblock print on Rives BFK

17in x 28in

2023


Stained glass
EARLY WORK



Cyanotype on washi

30x44in

2016


Bobble Wrap
EARLY WORK




Woddblock on cyanotype on Rives BFK
15x30in
2016



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