Jacqueline Humphries

Greene Naftali Gallery, New York

Acquired from the above in 2010 by the present owner

“Painting alludes to something in the air having to do with sounds and media - like waves or PCB’s. These aural vibrations are perhaps a backdoor to the landscape of an impersonal digital age, the predominant entrance, like a Gursky photograph, is literally a clutter of the airwaves.” 

(Lori Ortiz, “Jacqueline Humphries,” Brooklyn Rail, 24 August 2001 l) 

Jacqueline Humpries paints to self-consciously thematize her medium’s endgame, such as a suite of monochromes that grow progressively smaller in size. But such deadpan statements of the medium’s failure are not her style. 

While creating her own artistic style on canvas, she aims at the viewers to daydream when looking at her own artworks. In order for that to happen, she has to find some entertaining content. At first, she experiments with one-point perspective and vanishing points, which she deploys in a group of paintings produced in the late 90s. Later on, she begins rummaging through the profane history of visual culture, digging up strategies for bringing eyeballs to the canvas. 

Then, she adds a pseudo-mechanical step, stenciling and then pouring paint onto the overlapping stencils along a vertical axis. She extends her strategies, combining her analog medium with digital technologies, as a screen or interface. She actively alludes to Jackson Pollock in a stunning spattered and gestural canvas with excited streaks of color, and to Barnett Newman in a pink monochrome painting. 

Jacqueline Humphries’ recent solo exhibitions include Stuart Shave/Modern Art, London (2010, 2007); Greene Naftali, New York (2009); and Prospect.1 New Orleans, LA (2008). Her work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Buffalo AKG Art Museum; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.