Jeffrey Eric Rothstein is an American photographer who is challenging and reinvigorating the American Western landscape tradition while exploring non-traditional methods of making photographs. His work revolves around the analog film process, specific periods of painting, color, mysticism, abstraction, human connectedness in the digital age, and psychedelics. Jeffrey’s practice reexamines the history of photography and recreates an altered and heightened mental state that mirrors hallucinations.
He is best known for his iconic landscapes inspired by Chinese paintings of the 8th and 10th centuries, The Zion Series: Plateaux of Mirrors (2010–present), a project born of his love of the western United States and his fascination with the intersection of painting and photography. His new work, a continuation of the Zion series titled Both Directions at Once, is a deeper journey through the primordial landscapes of southern Utah and an ecstatic vision of his experiences in those spaces. The title refers to a conversation John Coltrane had with Wayne Shorter during a 1950s recording session about “starting a sentence in the middle, then going to the beginning and the end of it at the same time… both directions at once.” This is the space he seeks—magic by another name—through which the work emerges.
• Oblique Strategies bridges the realms of photography and painting, drawing inspiration from the geometric abstraction of the 1960s and 70s while reflecting the enduring influence of Maynard Dixon’s painterly landscapes and Laura Gilpin’s 1930s photographic meditations on the American West. Digitally composed and printed as singular, unrepeatable works on canvas, the series transforms photographic captures of painted textures, walls, and surfaces into vivid, abstract compositions that reimagine the natural world in bold, graphic terms.
Jeffrey’s hybrid approach—digitally editing and stitching photographic compositions before printing them as unique canvases—creates works whose physicality and presence blur the boundaries between mediums. This allows the pieces to command space and interact dynamically with their environment, asserting both uniqueness and versatility in large-scale architectural contexts. By channeling the timeless spirit of the American landscape into contemporary abstraction, Oblique Strategies becomes a meditation on presence, transformation, and the enduring resonance of place.
• For his Zion Canyon / Plateaux of Mirrors series, Jeffrey studied for two years with a professor of Chinese art history and a curator of Asian art at The Metropolitan Museum, focusing on scroll paintings of the Tang and Song dynasties. This body of work is not about photographing the literal appearance of the natural world; instead, Jeffrey distills his impressions—as did the painters of the Song Dynasty—to create works that idealize nature and emphasize its essential graphic qualities. The result is an impressionistic, painterly abstraction that conveys the energy and spirit of the landscape.
• With his ongoing project, The Architecture of Mountains, Jeffrey uses a low-orbit geo-survey satellite as his camera. Although the global landscape has been shaped by millennia of human occupation, his artistic imagination has been equally shaped by its lingering forms. Going beyond representation, these “landscapes of the mind,” as he calls them, are imbued with personal feeling to convey the inner terrain of the artist’s imagination.
• Jeffrey studied photography under post-war New York School photographers Jerry Liebling and Elaine Mays, and painting with Arthur Hoener—an early Op Art painter and student of Josef Albers—at Hampshire College. After college, he worked as a photo assistant to modern master Richard Avedon while attending The Whitney Independent Study Program, studying with guest artists Richard Serra and Brice Marden.
• BA- Hampshire College, Amherst Ma.
•The Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program (ISP) NY
• Born in Northampton, Massachusetts. He spent his early years in the Caribbean, attended secondary school in London but has always called New York City home.
EXHIBITIONS
•Von Lintel/ Both Directions at Once / Los Angeles, Ca
•Susan Eley Gallery/On the Rocks, New York, NY
•Kasher/Potamkin Gallery, Chelsea NYC
•The Tarn Collection/ Zion Mandala, England
•Lu Magnus Gallery/What the Thunder Said, New, NY
•Unwrap Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
•Susan Eley Gallery/Blaze, New York, NY
•Unwrap Gallery/Mie Gakure, Tokyo, Japan
•The New Erotic Museum, Los Angeles, Ca
•The New Erotic Museum, Los Angeles, Ca
•Boltax Gallery- Summer Girls, Shelter Island, NY
•The Tarn Collection, London, England
•Paul Morris Gallery- New York, NY
•Paul Morris Gallery-The Armory Show
•Saibu Gallery/Summer’s Soft Song-Tokyo, Japan
•Baron/Boisante- Trippy World ,New York, NY
•Jason McCoy Gallery-Kansas City, MO
•Paul Morris Gallery-New York, NY
•Paul Morris Gallery-New York, NY-The Armory Show
He is best known for his iconic landscapes inspired by Chinese paintings of the 8th and 10th centuries, The Zion Series: Plateaux of Mirrors (2010–present), a project born of his love of the western United States and his fascination with the intersection of painting and photography. His new work, a continuation of the Zion series titled Both Directions at Once, is a deeper journey through the primordial landscapes of southern Utah and an ecstatic vision of his experiences in those spaces. The title refers to a conversation John Coltrane had with Wayne Shorter during a 1950s recording session about “starting a sentence in the middle, then going to the beginning and the end of it at the same time… both directions at once.” This is the space he seeks—magic by another name—through which the work emerges.
• Oblique Strategies bridges the realms of photography and painting, drawing inspiration from the geometric abstraction of the 1960s and 70s while reflecting the enduring influence of Maynard Dixon’s painterly landscapes and Laura Gilpin’s 1930s photographic meditations on the American West. Digitally composed and printed as singular, unrepeatable works on canvas, the series transforms photographic captures of painted textures, walls, and surfaces into vivid, abstract compositions that reimagine the natural world in bold, graphic terms.
Jeffrey’s hybrid approach—digitally editing and stitching photographic compositions before printing them as unique canvases—creates works whose physicality and presence blur the boundaries between mediums. This allows the pieces to command space and interact dynamically with their environment, asserting both uniqueness and versatility in large-scale architectural contexts. By channeling the timeless spirit of the American landscape into contemporary abstraction, Oblique Strategies becomes a meditation on presence, transformation, and the enduring resonance of place.
• For his Zion Canyon / Plateaux of Mirrors series, Jeffrey studied for two years with a professor of Chinese art history and a curator of Asian art at The Metropolitan Museum, focusing on scroll paintings of the Tang and Song dynasties. This body of work is not about photographing the literal appearance of the natural world; instead, Jeffrey distills his impressions—as did the painters of the Song Dynasty—to create works that idealize nature and emphasize its essential graphic qualities. The result is an impressionistic, painterly abstraction that conveys the energy and spirit of the landscape.
• With his ongoing project, The Architecture of Mountains, Jeffrey uses a low-orbit geo-survey satellite as his camera. Although the global landscape has been shaped by millennia of human occupation, his artistic imagination has been equally shaped by its lingering forms. Going beyond representation, these “landscapes of the mind,” as he calls them, are imbued with personal feeling to convey the inner terrain of the artist’s imagination.
• Jeffrey studied photography under post-war New York School photographers Jerry Liebling and Elaine Mays, and painting with Arthur Hoener—an early Op Art painter and student of Josef Albers—at Hampshire College. After college, he worked as a photo assistant to modern master Richard Avedon while attending The Whitney Independent Study Program, studying with guest artists Richard Serra and Brice Marden.
• BA- Hampshire College, Amherst Ma.
•The Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program (ISP) NY
• Born in Northampton, Massachusetts. He spent his early years in the Caribbean, attended secondary school in London but has always called New York City home.
EXHIBITIONS
•Von Lintel/ Both Directions at Once / Los Angeles, Ca
•Susan Eley Gallery/On the Rocks, New York, NY
•Kasher/Potamkin Gallery, Chelsea NYC
•The Tarn Collection/ Zion Mandala, England
•Lu Magnus Gallery/What the Thunder Said, New, NY
•Unwrap Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
•Susan Eley Gallery/Blaze, New York, NY
•Unwrap Gallery/Mie Gakure, Tokyo, Japan
•The New Erotic Museum, Los Angeles, Ca
•The New Erotic Museum, Los Angeles, Ca
•Boltax Gallery- Summer Girls, Shelter Island, NY
•The Tarn Collection, London, England
•Paul Morris Gallery- New York, NY
•Paul Morris Gallery-The Armory Show
•Saibu Gallery/Summer’s Soft Song-Tokyo, Japan
•Baron/Boisante- Trippy World ,New York, NY
•Jason McCoy Gallery-Kansas City, MO
•Paul Morris Gallery-New York, NY
•Paul Morris Gallery-New York, NY-The Armory Show