CV
education
1998 MFA, Museum of the School of Fine Arts, Tufts University, Boston MA
1993 Graduate Certificate in Fine Art, University of California, Santa Cruz
1992 BA, Fine Art, University of California, Santa Cruz
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2022 "The Reckoning," Holy Family University Art Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2021 "The Reckoning," Grubbs Gallery, Easthampton, MA
2019 “The Pilgrim Series,” One Financial Plaza, Springfield, MA
2013 “Jeff Stauder,” One Financial Plaza, Springfield, MA
2013 “I, Pilgrim,” Hampden Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA
2007 “American Pictures,” E.A. Seton Memorial Gallery, New Brunswick NJ
1997 “M.F.A. Thesis Exhibition,” Tufts University Gallery, Medford MA
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2023 "In Tandem,” Cape Cod Museum of Art, Dennis, MA
2021 Western Massachusetts Biennial, Hosmer Gallery, Northampton, MA
2018 "Caught in a Fantasy," Local Gallery, Easthampton, MA
2018 "Those Who Can," Nave Gallery, Somerville, MA
2018 "5th Annual Juried Show," A3 Gallery, Amherst, MA
2017 "Up/Rooted," Brookline Art Center, Brookline, MA
2016 "Breaking the Mold,” Cape Cod Museum of Art, Dennis, MA
2016 "Juror's Choice," Uforge Gallery, Boston, MA
2016 “Nowhere Everywhere Now Here,” Thompson Gallery, Weston, MA
2015 “Northampton Biennial: Motion-Emotion,” Hosmer Gallery, Northampton, MA
2015 "Open Call N-NE," Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, Brattleboro,VT
2014 "Painting Intricacies," The Nave Gallery Annex, Somerville, MA
2013 “Light,” Golden Thread Gallery, West Hartford, CT
2013 "12th National Prize Show," University Place Gallery, Cambridge, MA
2012 “Amherst Biennial,” Boltwood Gallery, Robert Frost Library Gallery, and Freedom Trails Gallery, Amherst, MA
2012 “Taking it to the Streets,” Worcester Windows, Worcester MA
2006 “Art Station Group Exhibition,” Art Station, Hightstown NJ
2005 “Art Station Group Exhibition,” Art Station, Hightstown NJ
2004 “Art Station Group Exhibition,” Art Station, Hightstown NJ
2000 “Happy Days,” Hall Street Space, Brooklyn NY
1999 “(Im)Perfect,” Hall Street Space, Brooklyn NY
1997 “Student Annual,” Grossman Gallery, Boston MA
1996 “Boit Exhibition,” Grossman Gallery, Boston MA
1996 “Student Annual,” Grossman Gallery, Boston MA
1994 “Open Juried Show,” Artworks Gallery, Hartford CT
1993 “Competitive Art Show Exhibition,” Charter Oak Cultural Center, Hartford CT
1993 “Eighteen,” Sesnon Gallery, University of California, Santa Cruz CA
AWARDS
2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship Grant in Painting
1997 Dana Pond Painting Award Finalist, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
1996 Dana Pond Painting Award Winner, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
"Protestantism fitted in very well with the New Science. By stripping away the wealth of symbols and imagery from medieval Christianity, Protestantism unveiled nature as a realm of objects hostile to the spirit and to be conquered by puritan zeal and industry. Thus Protestantism, like science, helped carry forward that immense project of modern man: the despiritualization of nature, the emptying of it of all the symbolic images projected upon it by the human psyche. With Protestantism begins that long modern struggle, which reaches its culmination in the twentieth century, to strip man naked."
- William Barrett, from Irrational Man
The Pilgrim Series functions as an allegorical cosmology using disjointed and iconic American imagery. An otherworldly place with recurring characters inhabit an indeterminate landscape; they include bison, crows, squirrels, foxes, corn, forms of wood, and a lone male pilgrim, expressionless and wearing only a hat. Although I began with the idea of an anonymous pilgrim as protagonist, this is also a group of evolving self-portraits. The central theme of The Pilgrim Series is the severed relationship between nature and Western man. The loss of an animistic connection with nature, and in the impossibility of an authentic reconnection, is played out in various ways. This fissure is represented in the interplay between pilgrim and bison as well as symbolic representations of other characters. Climate change, signified by rising waters that confront the protagonists, is a looming emphasis. Despite confronting serious issues, the absurdity inherent in the cosmology creates a conflicted reading of them. At its core the work is playful, and a sense of humor, confusion, and loss are equally communicated.
mythic west (current from 2020) STATEMENT
As a boy I was captivated by the stories of wild west gunslingers and outlaws. Mythic West is my mash-up of that troubled tradition with another; the classical myths that have dominated Western visual culture for hundreds of years. This absurd conflation reveals something about the function of myths, which can be defined as stories, but also as misrepresentations. In a similar way painting has always been a game of representation and misrepresentation. The subjects of this series, primarily George Custer, Jesse James, and John Wesley Hardin, can be seen as objectively terrible people, but their mythologies allow them to function in divergent ways. Historical figures become symbols rather than people, as real as the blood-red putti who watch over them here. My interests in painting mirror this indeterminate ground. Using a framework mined from long forgotten etchings and old west photographs I alternatively pursue representation and abstraction, structure and gesture, illusion and flatness. Pure color is applied both formally and metaphorically. I pit the figures against the flatness of the picture plane, enacting a battle in which I repeatedly render and flatten forms until I am satisfied that I have done both, and neither.
THE pilgrim series (2009 - 2017) STATEMENT
Jeff Stauder was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the son of a radical Maoist Harvard junior professor and a loving FDR Democrat. Raised by a fierce single mother, as a child he roamed freely in the woodlands of Eastern Connecticut. Stauder received his BA in Art from the University of California at Santa Cruz and his MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where he won the 1996 Dana Pond Painting Award. Stauder moved to New York City where he painted, bartended, and created the Artists Theoretical Racing Circuit, a collaborative conceptual art project. Resorting to teaching, he moved to Western Massachusetts in 2008, where he finally indulged his true nature by reveling in an imagistic historicism inspired by his favorite old and modern masters. That work has been exhibited widely in New England, including a solo exhibition at the University of Massachusetts. In 2022 he was awarded a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship Grant in Painting. A joyful misanthrope with a deep knowledge of painting, Stauder loves rock & roll, art history, and cats. He is trying to create one truly great picture before he dies.
"Breaking the Mold" at the Cape Cod Museum of Art, 2016
THE RECKONING (2018 - 2021) STATEMENT
"I, Pilgrim" at the Hampden Gallery, 2013
Jeff Stauder
BIO
The Reckoning is a continuation of my preceding Pilgrim series, with an allegorical cosmology of my own design. Recurrent characters from that series appear again here, with the rising waters now an urgent threat. There is a sensation that time is nearing an end. The owl, a central new presence flanked by subservient beings, now presides over this world. The usher of the reckoning, the owl represents a purposeful dark omen.The Reckoning is inspired by my love of both Late Gothic Sienese and Early Netherlandish painting. The peculiar amalgam of detailed realism and contrived artificial space feels simultaneously old and new. My representations live freely in a place where odd symmetries, sacred symbols, and rhythmic stylizations are forced to co-exist. Allusions to climate change are a persistent theme. A disjointed mix of imagery explores mankind's loss of an animistic connection with nature, and in the impossibility of an authentic reconnection. An absurdist allegory, the Reckoning does not function as a narrative, nor does it promise to provide answers.