Biography

Jourdan Arpelle is an American artist currently living in New York City. Her studio is in the Financial District, near the New York Stock Exchange.

The artist did her graduate work at the University of Houston after being invited into the MFA program by the sculptor, James Surls. This invitation to study with him followed two years of post-baccalaureate work in Fine Arts at the University. At the time, the artist was completing eight commissioned works for Dallas Commerce Bank.

Her desire to learn more about sculpture inspired a research project on Contemporary British Sculptors. The work of Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, and Anthony Caro peaked her curiosity about new work in Britain in the 1980’s.

During her year abroad, while living in London and commuting to the University of Houston, she was offered a job by Max Hutchinson, to work in his SoHo gallery in New York City. These were her formative years as an artist where she had exposure to the New York art world, museums, collectors, critics, architects, and other artists.

While working on the dealer side of the art world, she learned and absorbed every nuance of the art business and the creative output of other artists, but did not make art herself. During this period, her accomplishments included being Curator of Carolee Schneemann’s first solo New York exhibition at the Max Hutchinson Gallery. She eventually opened her own private gallery in the Singer Building where she showed transformative and minimalist art.

The next phase of this artist was toward exploration in the spiritual and metaphysical studies which evolved out of her experience as a teacher of Technologies for Creating. The structure of this coursework laid a foundation to explore Eastern philosophies and meditation. It was through a meditative experience that she saw a vision which she knew she would paint. Indeed, two years later, she began serious work based on this vision, in her New York NoHo studio.

In 1998, Jourdan Arpelle was giver her first one-person show in Europe at the Stil American Fine Arts Gallery in Mettmann near Düsseldorf. In 1999, she exhibited her second European solo show at the Galerie Orms, the premier avant garde contemporary gallery in Innsbruck, Austria. Her first solo exhibition in New York was at the Robert Pardo Gallery in Chelsea in 2001. Jourdan Arpelle’s work is in numerous collections in Europe and America.