Thursday, January 08, 2009

JENNY MORGAN MAKES HER SOLO DEBUT IN NYC THIS WEEK WITH OPENING ON FRIDAY JANUARY 9TH


Plus Gallery artist Jenny Morgan has come a long way since serving as the first intern here at the gallery way back in the early part of this decade.  The first week of January 2009 marks another advancement in her career as she mounts her first solo exhibition with "Like the Spice" gallery in New York City.  "Abrasions" features all new paintings by Morgan and will be on view from January 9th - February 8th.  Like The Spice is located at 224 Roebling Street in Brooklyn.  The gallery will host an opening reception on Friday, January 9th from 6:30-10pm.  Below is text from the press release coinciding with the exhibition.

"In her tensely psychological portraits, all depicting people close to the artist, Jenny Morgan scrapes and sands away the top layers of paint creating wounds that are at once repellent, humanizing and technically masterful. Like drilling down to the molten core of the subjects' anatomy, the areas that are worn away mark the paintings as more than portraits but also as bodily stand ins, as though if you disturb them, the wounds may open up and start bleeding. It is left to the viewer whether it will be blood or red paint that will flow.

Presented on stark monochromatic grounds, the figures' presence confronts the viewer with a shocking dose of intimacy. From ten feet the figures seem powerful, statuesque and attractive. From five feet you begin noticing what seem like scrapes and rashes - compelling you to draw nearer. Up close you realize the full technical prowess of Morgan, who not only renders uncanny likenesses and emotionally complex portraits but lays the under-layers so that the "finished" painting can be sanded and carved revealing the blood and guts of both the subjects and the painting itself. Tiny pinpricks of gesso peek through where the wounds are deepest, creating a fascinating marriage of image and physical structure; the canvas' texture becomes a pointillist itch you can't scratch."

Those who have followed Morgan's output in the last couple of years know that she has fully delivered on the potential shown in her early breakout years in Denver.  She continues to produce an uncompromising body of work with emotional resonance and a visceral appeal like no other.  Drop in to see the exhibition if you are in New York this month and take a look at the continually fascinating development of Morgan's career.