Jacob Rochester

Jacob Rochester (b. 1995, Bloomfield, Connecticut) is a Los Angeles-based multidisciplinary artist whose practice explores Black Americana, memory, music and popular culture.

Working primarily in oil paint, Rochester creates vivid portraits and still lifes that draw upon personal history alongside the cultural imagery of late twentieth-century America. Record covers, photographs, fashion, family memories and the visual language of 1990s hip-hop and reggae culture frequently appear throughout his work, reflecting on the profound influence of Black creativity on contemporary entertainment, fashion and visual culture.

Trained in graphic design, Rochester combines sketches, gouache studies and digital manipulation with traditional painting techniques, often building his oil paintings through layered glazes over monochromatic underpaintings. The resulting works move between intimacy and collective nostalgia, transforming familiar cultural references into meditations on identity, memory and lived experience.

Rochester has exhibited internationally across Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Miami, Paris, London, Tokyo and Seoul.