Two Short Reviews
[Editor's Note: We learned from our end-of-year survey that many of our readers were not aware of the ADUMBRATIONES news and reviews section of the site, featuring short, under-200 word reviews of creative productions. Their brevity imposes a challenge on the writer to be succinct yet comprehensive. In order to highlight this section, we are importing David Jarred's review of Jennifer Meanley's exhibition at Manifest Gallery. For consistency of authorship, we have included his earlier review of the exhibition 'Idea' at Semantics Gallery.
Jennifer Meanley at Manifest Creative Research Gallery and Drawing Center
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Jennifer Meanley. And in the End The Monster Ate Them Both, 2009. Oil on canvas, , 72x108in. Photo Courtesy of Manifest Creative Research Gallery and Drawing Center
Jennifer Meanley. And in the End The Monster Ate Them Both, 2009. Oil on canvas, , 72x108in. Photo Courtesy of Manifest Creative Research Gallery and Drawing Center
The Paintings of Jennifer Meanley have an intuitive clarity that immediately sucks you in, leaving you not immediately sure why.
In the painting And in the End, The Monster Ate Them Both (2009) one sees a ghastly canine carcass laying on a table with a group of humans gathered around it in an exotically urban setting. The grouping of the dead and living in this work blurs the demarcation between life and death. This morbidity is echoed in tree branches that are half-barren and half-lush with vegetation. Stylistically, Meanly leaves some of the compositional elements loose and curious while rendering certain figures very specifically and individually. Despite the stoic nature of the humans' facial expressions, the rhythm of the relationships between the eyes, nose and lips within the odd angularity of the facial bone structure combine with the color palette and composition to communicate nuanced emotions. As Meanley's rendering shifts from tight to ghostly her color palette shifts from vibrant to dark, but it is always masterfully improvisational. In the end Meanley's style and content combine to express a deep emotional reality that becomes finely surreal in such imaginative and proficient painting.
