For twenty years, Jessica Cochran has worked as a curator, administrator, consultant, and educator in the realm of contemporary art. She offers to each collaboration her passion for working generativity, always considering how an artist's work might move meaningfully into print.
After graduating from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Cochran began her career at Art Chicago and NEXT, where she helped launch the inaugural CONVERGE Curator's Forum. From 2010-2014 she was curator at the Center for Book and Paper Arts at Columbia College Chicago, where she organized Social Paper: Hand Papermaking in the Context of Socially Engaged Art among other exhibitions that sought to infuse the program with artists working at the vanguard of contemporary art. In 2020 she founded Haynes Court, a project space which brought to Chicago artists working internationally, and included solo exhibitions by Mary Simpson, Claudia Hart, and Zarouhie Abdalian. Under the auspices of her boutique advisory, Art & Field, Cochran helped corporate and private clients build and manage collections, from acquisitions to new commissions, disposition, and estate planning. Her curatorial work, independent and institutional, has been supported by grants and fellowships from the Contemporary Arts Council, Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, the Craft Research Fund, and the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. In 2023, Newcity named her to the "Art 50."
Since 2013, Cochran has taught in the Department of Arts Administration and Policy at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, teaching graduate and undergraduate courses in art market studies, curatorial and professional practices, and nonprofit finance. Her writing has appeared most recently in the Art Market Dictionary and the Journal of Artists' Books, and with the Hyde Park Art Center she published a monograph on the work of Deborah Boardman in 2019.
Cochran is concurrently Deputy Director at the Renaissance Society. As part of the leadership team and in collaboration with a small and dedicated staff, her portolio includes insitutional finance, operations, and strategy.