Biography

Jeff Ostergren creates vivid, pointillist works that investigate the intertwined histories of pharmaceuticals and color. His paintings, sculptures, videos, drawings, and installations, infused with actual chemicals, employ imagery from art history and advertising to examine the ecstasy and toxicity of contemporary life.

Originally trained as an anthropologist, Jeff has been a practicing artist for two decades. He currently has work in the group exhibition Dot: A Group Show at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery in New York City. Recent solo exhibitions include Saturation Points at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, CT, and High Society at Real Art Ways in Hartford, CT, alongside group exhibitions throughout New York, Los Angeles, Europe, and New England. His upcoming solo exhibitions include Prescriptive Visions at Mercy Gallery at the Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor, CT (February 2026), a show at Ball & Socket Arts in Cheshire, CT (Fall 2026), and an exhibition at the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, CT (2027).

Ostergren is a recipient of a 2026 Creative Capital Grant. He also has received a 2024 Lillian Orlowsky and William Freed Grant from the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, where he exhibited work alongside other recipients in Spring 2025. Ostergren has also received support from the Puffin Foundation, the Connecticut Office of theArts, and the Bitsie Clark Fund for Artists.

He also has a curatorial practice, including the well-reviewed exhibition “False Flag:The Space Between Reason and Paranoia” at Franklin Street Works in Stamford, CT, in 2018. In addition, from 2018-2019, Ostergren ran Tilia Projects, a community exhibition space, out of his studio in New Haven.

Ostergren received his MFA from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA, in 2006, following a BA in a double major of anthropology and gender studies at Rice University in Houston, TX, in 1998. He lives and works in New Haven, CT.