ABOUT

Jay Kochel is a Canberra-based artist who completed his Doctorate in Philosophy at the Australian National University, School of Art, in 2014. Kochel’s doctoral studies focused on the relationship between fetish, magic and contemporary art. The majority of his fieldwork was conducted at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford and the Musée du quai Branly, Paris, where he researched the history of the fetish object. Recently, his work has focussed on 3D mapping, machine drawing and pattern recognition using augmented reality. In 2014 he was awarded an Arts ACT Project Funding grant and Asialink Residency to the Kyoto Art Center, Japan. While in Japan, Kochel began working with air – as a literal and metaphorical medium to explore form and immateriality.

In 2013, as part of a Vice Chancellor’s Visiting Artist Fellowship, Kochel conducted research on scent and methods of representing the unseen, working with the ANU College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences and the ANU Research School of Chemistry – in particular with Dr Tim Brooke and Associate Professor Russell A. Barrow.

Kochel has won several awards including: the 2017 Exploration Artist Award, Flinders Lane Gallery; joint winner of the M16 Artspace Drawing Prize (2016); recipient of the Neil Roberts Award (2008); and the Anthony Forge Prize for Anthropology (2004). Prior to completing an honours degree (2001) in sculpture and interactive media, Kochel completed a combined Bachelor of Anthropology and Law in 1996.

Kochel is currently represented by Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne.