Jason Lee Starin is an artist who received his MFA in Applied Craft and Design from Pacific Northwest College of Art and Oregon College of Art and Craft in 2011, and his BFA in Ceramics from Grand Valley State University in 1999. In 1998, he studied Conceptual Art and Sculpture at Kingston University, Kingston, UK.
Jason Lee Starin has shown in numerous group exhibitions throughout the USA, most notably at Atlantic Gallery, NYC; Katherine E. Nash Gallery, MN; Law Warschaw Gallery, MN; Woodmere Art Museum, PA; Gravity Gallery, MA; American Museum of Ceramic Art, CA; The Center for Craft, Creativity and Design, NC; GCA Gallery, NYC; Arizona State University Art Museum, Ceramics Research Center, AZ; The Clay Studio, PA; and San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, TX. From 2015 to 2019, Starin was a full-time Resident Artist at The Clay Studio in Philadelphia, PA. In 2017, he received an Independence Foundation Fellowship Grant to research his interest in geomythology during a two-month stay at the NES Artist Residency in Skagaströnd, Iceland.
From 2015 to 2020, Starin served as a faculty member as well as the Ceramic Shop Supervisor and Technician in the Craft and Material Studies Program at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA, and during that time also taught Advanced Handbuilding classes at The Clay Studio. From 2013 to 2014, he was the Lead Ceramic Technician and Studio Manager for the Ceramic Department at Mt. Hood Community College in Gresham, OR. He has held positions with BDDW, LLC; Mudshark Studios, LLC; Michael Curry Design, Inc.; The Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts; and Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University. Starin is currently a full-term Resident Artist at The Archie Bray Foundation and a 2025 Quigley-Hiltner Fellowship recipient.
Visit Jason Lee Starin’s website and Instagram page.
Featured work
VISITOR Series, 2024-2025
SOL Series, 2020-2023
Through intuitive making with my hands, my artwork strives to extend the role of functionality beyond mere utility, and towards a possibility that the making act is a haptic necessity which defines and sustains our human identity. Employing ceramics, discarded objects, and construction materials to create sculptures, my art practice attempts to find connections between craft, escapism, and emotional awareness. Artworks reference geological landforms, structural geometries, and the myths of creation and survival that intertwine our imagined and physical identities and surrounding realities.
