Jake Rockland is a generative artist whose practice draws on printmaking and quiltwork passed down from his grandparents, composing scenes as digital silkscreens made of stippled dots.,He is based in Arizona and holds a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Arizona, having also studied Economics at Sciences Po in Paris. After working as a Senior Software Engineer at Google, he became CTO of Art Blocks.
In 2021, Rockland was featured on Art Blocks' interview series After Dinner Mints.His early Art Blocks series explore a recurring theme of physical, significant spaces: Stipple Sunsets evokes the escape of the beach, Patchwork Saguaros reflects the Sonoran desert home where he grew up, and Speckled Summits reflects on the Rocky Mountains, where he lives.Patchwork Saguaros was cited as an inspiration by the artist DCA, who credited it with teaching them about the Saguaro cactus.In 2023, Sonoran Roadways continued this arc, reflecting on long drives as a conduit for return to meaningful places, in a fixed edition of 54 unique artworks released on Art Blocks. He explored a more abstract direction in Dot Matrix Gradient Study, applying distortion and “digital misprinting” to his stipple technique.
In May 2024, Rockland released Opuntia, an edition of 18 artworks, exclusively on the Sansa marketplace in a Dutch auction priced from 1.2 ETH down to 0.4 ETH.Opuntia was also exhibited through Vertu Fine Art, a Boca Raton, Florida gallery founded by Gary Santoro that specializes in editions by figures in Pop, Abstract Expressionism, and Optical Art, extending the gallery's collecting focus into generative and on-chain art.Rockland described the textured compositions in Opuntia as inspired by the desert, printmaking, quilting, and “his grandmothers' practices of textile work”.
