One of the many lures of Jennifer Rochlin’s seductive yet understated ceramic sculptures is that they feel deeply honest and true to her life. Viewers are invited into a private realm where they encounter scenes of her two sons serenely playing chess together, a tubing trip with friends down the Kern River or a couple making love in their backyard on a magic carpet.

On one, a friend, Mimi, is laying out in her garden, blissfully surrounded by oversized fruit, flowers and a relaxed pup, seemingly at ease in the presence of such perfect and quiet solitude. With a closer look, human bite marks come into focus and echo around the top edge of the clay pot holding this envious scene. It’s provocative and completely unexpected given the pastoral subject matter, and the act of biting this work nods towards a very intense relationship between Rochlin and her artwork.

All of Jennifer Rochlin’s ceramic vessels have images of personal narratives and decorative motifs scratched into them before glazing and painting begins. The scenes feel like a stream of consciousness as they explore Rochlin’s family life, fantasies and immediate surroundings in Altadena, CA. Her sculptures are completely hand-made, giving the vessels irregular shapes and textured surfaces, and time seems to stand still in these never-ending drawings, which loop back into themselves infinitely as they circle around her clay forms.

In many works, Rochlin also pays respect to a local legend named P-22, an aging mountain lion that has become a part of Los Angeles urban folklore. Against all odds, P-22 has made Griffith Park its home for the past ten years. This wild cat is a scrappy survivor eking out an existence in the fragile Southern California landscape, and for Rochlin they are kindred spirits.

Jennifer Rochlin (b. 1968, Baltimore, MD) lives and works in Altadena, CA. She received a BFA at The University of Colorado at Boulder and then completed her MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Rochlin has recently had solo exhibitions and presentations with The Pit (Los Angeles, CA), Sorry We’re Closed (Brussels, Belgium) and Maki Gallery (Tokyo, Japan). P-22 is her first exhibition with SHRINE.