Jennifer Reeves,
Untitled, 1996,
acrylic on wood,
c. 24 x 48 in.
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david ebony's
new york top ten
Jennifer Reeves
at the Roger Smith
Nov. 7-Dec. 20, 1996
Jennifer Reeves' work has appeared in group
shows around town--at Jack Shainman, and
elsewhere--and she has had solos in Chicago
and Paris. This exhibition marks her New
York solo debut.
When I first saw her work last season--two
paintings at Jack Shainman--it struck me,
contradictorily, as a kind of ultra-
sophisticated folk art. Now all New Yorkers
can decide for themselves. This storefront
gallery is brightly lit at night so you can
even drive by in the wee hours of the
morning and see the show. But drive slowly
or else you will miss the textural nuances
that are the cornerstones of Reeves'
paintings. In each work she sets up an
innocuous--and sometimes crudely rendered--
background landscape, that is pictorially
disrupted by a painterly, abstract
intrusion. Passages of thickly painted
lines, for instance, serve as foils in a
turbulent seascape or a bucolic farm scene.
One canvas shows two garbage cans connected
by incongruous globs of brown paint. Once
coherent, Reeves' scenes crumble before the
eyes into a painterly farce. Reeves is a
painter to watch, or watch out for. She has
something to say. I'm not sure what it is
yet, but I'm all ears--and eyes.
Back to Reviews 1996 Archives
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