Artist Statement:

My practice looks at home, though home is never just one thing. It is a word stretched thin by longing, a memory lit by the flicker of something almost familiar. It hides in the creases of a tablecloth, the smell of burnt wax, or the strange comfort of a drawer that doesn’t quite shut. For those who have been displaced, uprooted, or confined, home takes on a peculiar shimmer: a thing that is there and not there, a lighthouse and a ghost.

I collect pieces of this shimmer. Like a scavenger or a caddisfly, I gather what the world leaves behind, scraps of paper mapped with fleeting thoughts, fragments of peeling walls, small treasures found on walks, objects abandoned to quiet corners. These remnants come together as drawings, objects, and stories, layered with sounds that hum with echoes of other rooms, other times.

The work hovers somewhere between belonging and not belonging, pulling at the threads of home’s fragility. It maps the dissonance between the pure, golden image of childhood homecomings and the jagged edges of adult reality. I explore how we make meaning from the objects and spaces that surround us, offering a meditation on the ways home continues to shape and reshape who we are. It’s about what happens when the floorboards crack, when the walls we thought were solid dissolve into dust and memory. The pieces seek to reconcile contradictions, merging personal experiences, collective histories, and emotional landscapes to reflect on belonging, loss, and the yearning for stability.

In these fragments, I try to stitch together something whole; an installation, a moment, a gesture. Something that feels, even for a fleeting second, like home, or at least the shadow it casts when the light is just right. 

CV

Current / Upcoming

2026

‘MISHPOCHA – The Art of Collaboration’, Jewish Museum, Frankfurt, Germany (group)

‘The Embodied Word’, Centre for Contemporary Art, Toruń, Poland (group)

Past

Biennials:

2025:

‘Hilo Común’, for Bienalsur, Museum of Contemporary Art, Oaxaca, Mexico

Solo Exhibitions:

2026:

‘Time and Time Again’, IKON Gallery off-site exhibition with Discover Bucks Museum, UK

2025:

‘Remaining Without Returning’, Op Enheim, Wrocław, Poland

‘The Inhale Before’, Kunsthaus Dahlem, Berlin

2024:

'I Wish I Was (Homeward Bound)’, Nogallery, Berlin

2022:

'Pack Up The Moon’, The Steamship PS, London

2019:

'Pale Fire’, Galerie Plan D, Dusseldorf, Germany

Selected Group Exhibitions:

2026:

‘Soil & Water - Mediterranean Crossing’ Artrooms Kyrenia, Cyprus

2025:

‘Waiting ’til Next Year For Another Year’, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK

‘Soil & Water’, Nirox Foundation, Krugersdorp, South Africa

‘Common Threads’, Kunsthaus Dahlem, Berlin

2024:

-Deconstruction Construction (curator), HMP Bullingdon, Oxfordshire

‘Searching for Traces Towards the Present’ – projects and interventions against antisemitism, Kunsthaus Dahlem, Berlin

2021:

-‘Deptford X’, London

‘A Rose (is a Rose)', Kajiado Rescue Centre, Berlin

2020:

‘Family Business’, Centrum Judaicum, New Synagogue, Berlin

‘Butterfly Blue Goodbye’, Brixton Beneficiary, London

2018:

MA Degree Show, Royal College of Art, London

2017:

‘The Dodo and the Seed’, Siobhan Davies Dance Studios, London

2016:

‘Graduate Show’, Oktogon Museum, Dresden

‘Intervention’, Kunsthaus Dahlem, Berlin

‘Hat Stick Shoe’, Associacao Cultural, Gois, Portugal

2014:

‘Postcards From The East’, APT Gallery, London

‘Dada Ty’, European Centre of Culture, Hellerau, Germany

Residencies:

2025:

‘Hilo Común’, in Puebla, Hueyapan and Oaxaca, Mexico

Common Threads for ’10 Years, Ten Days’, Kunsthaus Dahlem, Berlin

Artist in Residence, with Ikon Gallery Birmingham, in collaboration with HMP Spring Hill, funded by Rothschild Foundation

2024:

Cordts Foundation residency, Schwanenwerder, Berlin

2016:

Raizvanguarda, Gois, Portugal

Collections:

- Tamachij Chihuatl Collective at Museum of Contemporary Art (MACCO), Oaxaca, Mexico

- Galerie Diehl, Berlin, Germany

Selected Talks:

2026:

‘Teaching in prisons: the art of waiting and learning to fail’, Freelands Foundation

‘Soil, Water, and the Politics of Interdependence’, for Let’s Talk: The Exhibition, Kunsthaus Dahlem, Germany

‘Pilgrimage and Walking Without Purpose: repetition, ritual and punishment’, introduced by Olaf Nicolai, Academy of Fine Art, Munich

‘Politics and Poetics of Carceral Space’, IKON Gallery talk at DB Museum, Aylesbury

‘Art, Memory, Responsibility’, Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Johannesburg, South Africa

‘Assembling Home’, University of Pretoria, South Africa

2025:

Hilo Común press talk, Casa de Cultura, Puebla, Mexico

Artist and curator talk, Galerie Op Enheim, Wrocław, Poland

‘Carceral Cinema, Act 1: Women in Prison,’ with Flatpack Festival, Mockingbird Cinema, Birmingham

‘Ten Years, Ten Days’, artist talk, Kunsthaus Dahlem, Germany

‘Art in Prisons’ symposium, IKON Gallery, Birmingham

2021

‘Uprootedness and Hybridity’ for Refugee Week, Counterpoints Arts, London

Selected Press and Writing:

‘‘Trwając bez powrotu - Jessiki Ostrowicz’, Philine Pahnke (Sfinansowano przez Unię Europejską NextGenerationEU), SZUM Magazine

‘Zaczęłam budować symboliczny dach nad głową’, Angelika Lachawiec for Well Magazine

‘Wrocławski Niezbędnik Kulturalny’ (Wrocław Cultural Guide), front cover

‘Trwając bez powrotu - Jessiki Ostrowicz’, Natalia Gaj, Format Magazine

Artist interview with curator and producer of Trwając bez powrotu for Radio Wrocław

Exhibition interview of Trwając bez powrotu for Radio Wrocław

‘Remaining Without Returning’, catalogue for solo exhibition at Op Enheim, Wrocław.

‘Interview with HMP Spring Hill Artist in Residence’, James Latunji Cockbill, Ikon Gallery

‘Art Shines Light on Dark Themes’ - article for Inside Time 

‘Destruction Construction’ - a zine made in collaboration with students at HMP Bullingdon for prison-wide distribution. 

‘Art as Contradiction’ , by Dagmar Enkelmann

‘Klagemauer aus Backpapier’ - Katharina Schmidt-Hirschfelder for Jüdischer Allgemeine

‘It Stays in the Family’- Gareth Joswig for Die Tageszeitung

‘Dismember :: Remember' - catalogue text by Matthew Turner 

‘The Dodo and the Seed' - catalogue text on Flight Test, Siobhan Davies Dance Studios by Kit Webb  

Bio

Jessica Ostrowicz (b. Birmingham, UK), is an artist and prison teacher.

Education:

- MA in Contemporary Art Practice | Critical Practice, Royal College of Art, London

- Fine Art Diplom (integrated BA+MA) with specialism in painting and drawing, Academy of Fine Art, Dresden, Germany