Exhibit by Jeremy Hatch

This exhibition represents a selection of the work completed during a 2025/26 sabbatical from his position teaching ceramics at the MSU School of Art. In addition to conducting research, he spent time engaged with this expansive project to recast his childhood toy collection in porcelain.

Jessie Wilber Gallery
September 11 – November 21, 2026

Reception

Opening reception during the Emerson Art Walk on Friday, September 11th from 5:00-9:00pm.

Artist Statement

In the 1980’s, television advertising was deregulated to allow marketing directly to children, resulting in a wave of new cartoons and a ‘golden era’ of action-figures that corresponded with my upbringing. (He-Man, WWF, Star Wars and many more) I’m curious how this phenomenon affected my generation, and I have been exploring these consequences in my studio. By remaking the hyper-masculine and often violent characters in a delicate, precious material such as porcelain I want to alter and complicate the viewer’s interpretation of the subject.

Recently, the project has expanded to include remixing 18thCentury decorative arts objects with action-figures resulting in a peculiar fictional souvenir. I have become particularly interested in connections to historical European traditions of porcelain figurines; how they functioned in culture and what they represented. The action-figure/figurine mashup contains several creative strategies and approaches common within contemporary visual art, including ideas of copying, appropriation, recombination and recontextualization in order to arrive at something new.

This series also investigates notions of memory and nostalgia, branding, collector culture, and consumerism.

Artist Bio

Jeremy Hatch is a Canadian born artist who works with porcelain to create sculpture and installations. He has exhibited widely at venues including: The Memorial Museum in Curitiba Brazil; The Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery; The Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver, BC; The Icheon World Ceramic Center, Icheon, Korea; the Duolun Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai, China; The Urban Institute for Contemporary Art, Grand Rapids; and The Holter Museum, Helena, Montana. 

He has been awarded multiple international artist residencies including The Archie Bray Foundation, The European Ceramic Work Center, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, and the Art/Industry Program at Kohler. Hatch is also the founder of Ricochet Studio, a design lab that focuses on creating limited edition ceramic pieces in collaboration with artists from various disciplines. He currently lives in Bozeman, Montana and is an Associate Professor in the School of Art at Montana State University.