Jess Cochrane for the Nanushka Art Program

London-based Australian artist Jess Cochrane produces figurative oil paintings that depict scenes from the everyday, with a focus on the mundane and familiar. Portraying scenes that are universally recognised or experienced, Cochrane creates a thematic thread of consumerism, pop culture and fashion that runs through her artworks.

Informed by Nanushka’s Fall/Winter 2025 collection, “Grow”, Jess Cochrane reflects on what it means to exist as a woman - both in metaphorical and physical spaces. Her body of work unfolds through symbolic still life and figurative portraits, drawing on the language of objects and forms to speak to lived experience.  

Ceramics appear as vessels, evoking the female body’s capacity to hold, nurture, and contain. Flowers, in varying stages of bloom and decline, mirror the shifting ages and phases of womanhood. These symbolic compositions are placed in dialogue with figurative works of women simply existing, at ease in their own presence.  

Through this interplay, Cochrane interrogates her own experience of becoming a mother, while opening space for viewers - particularly women - to encounter and interpret the symbolism for themselves.

Traditional Hungarian Vessel, 2025

Signed, dated and titled

Oil on canvas, sliver leaf 

100 x 70 cm 

This work depicts a traditional Hungarian ceramic, discovered during Cochrane’s visit to the Hungarian House in New York. Researching this piece, the artist also sought to reconnect with her own Hungarian heritage that had previously remained unexplored.  By painting the vessel on a large scale, Cochrane elevates a modest object to grand, embodying both cultural memory and personal lineage. The silver foil frame recalls the delicacy of lace doilies, folk embroidery, and other hand-crafted traditions - forms of ornament intrinsically tied to Hungarian culture. Lace, often made by elder women, becomes a symbol of intergenerational knowledge.  In dialogue with Nanushka’s own menswear collection, which incorporates lace, the work honours the quiet strength of elder generations while reimagining tradition through a contemporary lens. 

Image courtesy of Gillian Jason Gallery.

Traditional Hungarian Vessel, 2025

Signed, dated and titled 

Oil on canvas, sliver leaf 

70 x 100 cm 

Sunflowers are a recurring motif in traditional Hungarian folk culture and one of Hungary’s most significant economic exports to Europe. Their radiant, full blooms evoke vitality, warmth, and abundance, serving as a metaphor for women at their most vibrant and empowered. In this context, the sunflower becomes both a celebration of life and a symbolic reflection of womanhood in its fullest expression. 

Image courtesy of Gillian Jason Gallery.

Untraditional Hungarian Vessel I, 2025

Glazed ceramic vessel 

The ceramic vessels in this body of work explore the idea of woman and mother as vessel - each unique in shape, curve, and presence, yet all capable of carrying multitudes. Through them, Cochrane seeks to make sense of her own story as a woman and mother.  Working across both painting and pottery, she mirrors sculpted forms with their painted depictions, placing her vessels in dialogue with traditional Hungarian ceramics. Adapting inherited motifs with contemporary symbols, she layers humour and cultural reference into the work. In doing so, she bridges personal experience with the fragments and questions of her Hungarian heritage. 

Image courtesy of Gillian Jason Gallery.

Untraditional Hungarian Vessel, 2025

Signed, dated and titled 

Oil on canvas 

100 x 70 cm 

The ceramic vessels in this body of work explore the idea of woman and mother as vessel - each unique in shape, curve, and presence, yet all capable of carrying multitudes. Through them, Cochrane seeks to make sense of her own story as a woman and mother.  Working across both painting and pottery, she mirrors sculpted forms with their painted depictions, placing her vessels in dialogue with traditional Hungarian ceramics. Adapting inherited motifs with contemporary symbols, she layers humour and cultural reference into the work. In doing so, she bridges personal experience with the fragments and questions of her Hungarian heritage. 

Image courtesy of Gillian Jason Gallery.

Tulips in an Untraditional Hungarian Vessel, 2025

Signed, dated and titled 

Oil on canvas 

100 x 70 cm 

In Hungarian folk narratives, tulips often appear in textiles and artworks as symbols of womanhood. Cochrane draws on this tradition, depicting tulips at varying stages of bloom to represent different phases of life: the closed bud representing as a young girl, the bloom as a young woman, the half-open flower as the stage of pregnancy, and the fully open tulip as grandmotherhood. By uniting these forms within both the handmade vessel and its painting, she evokes the generational cycle of women - each stage carried within the body, each life blooming into its own being. 

Image courtesy of Gillian Jason Gallery.