Jenny Yurshansky is an artist whose practice is deeply informed by being a refugee. Using material and critical parameters defined by a conceptual and research-based approach, she explores the trauma of displacement by interrogating notions of belonging and otherness through site, historical traces and social constructions, often formally manifested as absence, loss or erasure. Her work includes writing and working with a variety of materials such as cast, slumped, and found glass, charred steel, MDF manipulated to simulate antique display cases, embroidered textiles, hand-cut paper silhouettes of plants, laser etched granite and photographic installations.
Yurshansky uses her experiences of living as an immigrant twice over, first as a refugee in the U.S. and then as an immigrant in Sweden for a period of 11 years, to explore displacement and the experience of xenophobia and to connect with others with these histories. The notion of otherness being a consistent theme in her work has developed out of living as a third culture person. Ultimately, her goal is to create discourse through narratives whether they are based in sculpture, photography, installation or through writing. These are the stories of generations of migrants. To develop these pieces involves a process of intensive investigation by means of interviews, research, and site visits in order to bring nuance and care to the themes and subjects, ensuring that the stories she is telling and their reception deepens understanding and awareness.
Jenny Yurshansky is an American artist who was born stateless in Rome by way of Soviet-era Moldova. She received her MFA in Visual Art from UC Irvine and was a postgrad in Critical Studies at the Malmö Art Academy. In 2020 she will have a solo show at Platt and Borstein Galleries at American Jewish University and is the first artist-in-residence along with solo exhibition at Harvard-Westlake in Los Angeles, along with being the inaugural Alumni Artist-in-Residence at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts. In 2019 Yurshansky received the City of Los Angeles Artist Fellowship along with an exhibition at Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery. She had a solo exhibition at St. Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana and was part of the exhibition “A NonHuman Horizon” at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions. In 2018 Pitzer College Art Galleries published her artist book and she was an Artist-in-Residence at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts. In 2016 she was an Artist-in-Residence at Arts Initiative Tokyo and she was invited by Yiddishkayt to travel as a guest artist to Moldova where she began research on her family’s history there. In 2014 she was the first Artist-in-Residence at Pitzer College Art Galleries followed in 2015 by her solo exhibition as part of the Emerging Artist series curated by Ciara Ennis. In 2015 she was also a Guest Artist Researcher at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm, which she concluded with a solo show. In 2012 she was an invited Artist-in-Residence connected to the exhibition Odor Water Limo in northern Norway. In 2010 Yurshansky was the first international artist awarded the Maria Bonnier Stipend from Bonniers Konsthall in Stockholm. Yurshansky has also participated in group shows at Bonniers Konsthall, Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Laguna Beach Art Museum, MAK Center, and LAXART, the Torrance Art Museum, the Armory Center for the Arts, the 7th Istanbul Biennial, the Hammer Museum, Rooseum Center for Contemporary Art in Malmö, and the Toyota Museum. She is the recipient of numerous artist and curatorial grants. She is the co-founder of Persbo Studio an artist residency, sculpture park, and creative space in Sweden.
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