“ Are: For – a proclamation – a decision – a stand – an acceptance – a position – a closing in and facing – the present tense of ‘ be ’ – with ‘ we ’ , ‘ you ’ , and ‘ they ’ – and the sign – used to mark a major division – to indicate that what follows – is an elaboration, summation, implication – of what precedes – on behalf of – in support of – with the purpose of – the aim of going to – for the benefit of – destined to – to allow of – of feelings of capacities towards – in its or their effect on – as being – in place of – when preceded and followed by the same subject – to the extent and duration of – at a certain time – regarding – in order to have – because of ”
-Jessica Dickinson, notes for Are: For
James Fuentes is currently showing a solo exhibition by Jessica Dickinson. This is the artist’s fourth exhibition with the gallery. An installation of the painting Are: For will be on view with its eighteen remainders hung in sequence, unfolding along all four walls. This is the first time Dickinson has exhibited a single painting with its full set of remainders in New York.
Dickinson’s work focuses on the sensations of time, light, and matter within shifting philosophical, perceptual and psychological states. Working with oil paint and various tools on a plaster-like ground, various additive and subtractive actions of countering speeds and pressures are layered, from repetitive marking to aggressive chiseling. These procedures draw their direction from a specific period and poetic sequence of events, where abrupt change is intertwined within daily time. Sudden shifts in perception, stone like negations, chance obliterations, and minor illuminations are woven through a slow accumulation of devotion and attention. Through this prolonged process, an index of duration is manifested through these paintings and their remainders. These large-scale graphite rubbings are made of the painting’s surface each time it has gone through significant change, registering and extending a temporal narrative.
In this installation, the painting Are: For compresses time into a chromatic, tactile, and luminous materiality. The remainders, installed directly on the wall, are ghost like topographies that present the imprint of the past in a sequential, immersive field. Visible Are: For in progress, May 2016 throughout the remainders, forms of light delineate and hold momentary passages that are then dissipated and dispersed. Incorporating loss as a form of structure, an intimate monumentality emerges through the materialization of these various oscillations and transitions.
Every painting Dickinson has made since 2010 has a set of remainders . Full sequences have been installed with their paintings previously in the exhibition Room by Room: Monographic Presentations from The Faulconer and Rochofsky Collections at The Warehouse, Dallas, TX, and more recently in New Ruins at The American University Museum at The Katzen Arts Center, in Washington, D.C.
