Jonathan Worcester

Education: BA, 2015, Sarah Lawrence College; MFA, Painting and Drawing, 2024. Awards: Whitney B. Halstead Scholarship, 2024; SAIC PTDW Teaching Fellowship, 2024; Luminarts Visual Artist Fellowship Award, 2023; Van Pappelendam/Castle Scholarship, 2023; George/Isabel Brown Scholarship, 2023; Oxbow Merit Winter Scholarship, 2022; Maurice Friedlander Memorial Scholarship, 2022; Van Pappelendam/Castle Scholarship, 2022; Maurice Friedlander Memorial Scholarship, 2021; Sarah Lawrence College scholarship to aid in repairing a Buddhist monastery in Sri Lanka, 2015. Publications: Midwest Issue #173, New American Paintings (2024); “Quietly Combative: A Review of Jonathan Worcester at University Club of Chicago”, Bianca Bova, New City Art (May 1, 2024); “Qualia and Computation: A Review of Jonathan Worcester’s “Tempers” at Cleaner Gallery+Projects”, Curtis Anthony Bozif, New City Art (January 24, 2024); The Sick Muse Issue #7, The Sick Muse, pg. 25 (April, 2017); The Sick Muse Issue #4, The Sick Muse, pg. 25 (August, 2016); “Studio Visit with Jonathan Worcester”, Kaitlyn Laurie, SLC Speaks, (February 24th, 2014). Exhibitions: Tempers, Cleaner Gallery + Projects, Chicago, IL. (January 13–March 2, 2024); Jonathan Worcester, University Club of Chicago, Chicago, Il. (March 1–May 22, 2024); Jonathan Worcester In The Hole, Weatherproof Gallery, Chicago, IL. (April–May, 2023); Distance Stations, Belong Gallery, Chicago IL. (February 4–26, 2022) 

Jonathan Worcester (he/him) is a painter currently living and working in Chicago, IL. He received his BA from Sarah Lawrence College in 2015, and his MFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2024. Worcester has been the subject of solo exhibitions at University Club of Chicago, Cleaner Gallery + Projects, Chicago, IL, The Hole @ Weather Proof Gallery, Chicago, IL, and Belong Gallery, Chicago, IL. Worcester is a recipient of the 2023 Luminarts Visual Arts Fellowship, as well as the Van Pappelendam/Castle Scholarship, the Maurice Friedlander Memorial Scholarship, the George/Isabel Brown Scholarship, the Whitney B Halstead Scholarship and has attended residencies at The Poor Farm, and Oxbow School of Art.

By balancing discordant colors and textures, Worcester harnesses dissonance and creates paintings that challenge the limitations of the human eye. His compositions reference the body and technology in an attempt to crystalize the inherent struggle between the two. The work transforms according to the proximity and position of the viewer, producing an experience specific to the lens of their body. Like estuaries feeding into a body of water, the paintings intimate divergent meanings through a network of connections that link discrete elements into a cohesive whole.