Herter Art Gallery is pleased to present The Meaning is as Fragile as the Flesh Between Us, a thesis exhibition by MFA candidate Jason Kotoch, in the Department of Art at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
On view: March 31 – April 5, 2025
Opening Reception: Wednesday April 2, 4 – 6 pm
Artist bio:
Jason Kotoch is an artist and a home cook. He started cooking because his dad told him that if he wanted to do art, he should pursue a culinary art in order to make some money. Jason’s dad was a Lebanese immigrant and a machinist at a bucket factory. Jason’s mom encouraged him to do whatever made him happy. Jason’s mom comes from West Virginia in the heart of Appalachia. She worked in the plastic factory that manufactured the original pink flamingo lawn ornament. She also told Jason his grandma Loretta's biscuit recipe. He wrote it down and slipped it in-between the pages of a particular Lebanese cookbook that he cooks from because it most closely mimics the Lebanese food he remembers his paternal grandmother making. Jason concerns himself with issues of labor, language and the recipes the elder women in his family have shared with him over the years. He’s a second generation Lebanese American who can't speak Arabic and he thinks about that a lot.