Featured Painting (above): Blush Lozenge
ARTIST STATEMENT: The ongoing theme in my art practice involves the creation of subtle order through the use of strong patterns, grids and geometries. Working with a wide range of media on canvas, paper and wood, I create a visual language through an ongoing process of exploration and experimentation. The work is built on an evolving set of interrelations, rather than just a system of themes and variations.
The latest series of paintings are a return to earlier compositions and themes. Rather than moving away from the immediately preceding body of work, it is an integration of the processes acquired during these investigations.
The “Pentimenti” series, is so named as it began by the act of painting over existing canvases where the circular geometry was a part of older works. Pentimenti, by definition means, “a visible trace of an earlier painting beneath a layer or layers of paint on a canvas.” In essence these paintings are picking up from an earlier series, but with a renewed interest in surface and scale and that includes a fuller color palette. Previous works were much more reductive and the use of color was intentionally restricted. The grid still exists, as a hint, in the layout of the “lozenge forms” on the canvas plane on vertical and horizontal axes.
The launch into began right after a trip to Greece. At night, there’s little ambient light(or light pollution), so that it’s clear enough to see a plethora of constellations and planets. The sky becomes an amazingly wide canvas. Connection to the elements has a new primacy for me, and a simplicity that subconsciously became part of the new visual language in the body of work created in the past few years.
This collision suggests new possibilities for a continued exploration of ideas and materiality most notably in “Post and Lintel.” The circular forms have elongated into new geometrical lozenge forms. Uncoupled from the totemic stacking of circular forms, although elongated as though pulled like taffy into the new lozenge shapes, these paintings move into a new architectural space. I am also “reclaiming” canvas to use in these newer works. Like an archaeological dig, the surface has traces of past paintings and adds another layer to the pentimenti concept. The given titles combine color theory principles, architecture and the formal and physical space of each work.
ARTIST BIO: Jean Wolff has had group and solo exhibits in various galleries in New York City and internationally. In addition, she has published 174 works in 119 issues of 62 magazines. Born in Detroit, Michigan, she studied fine arts at the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit and at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, receiving a BFA in studio arts. She then attended Hunter College, CUNY in New York, graduating with an MFA in painting and printmaking. She is now part of the artistic community of Westbeth in Manhattan.
