Robert Jack, 2009, One Influence Instigates an Irrevocable Change, (detail), casein on wood, 19.75 x 19.75 inches
Robert Jack
January 13 – February 12, 2011
Opening Reception: Thursday
January 13, 6 to 8pm
Anatomy of the Eye
Josée Bienvenu Gallery
is pleased to present “Anatomy of the Eye”, Robert Jack’s fifth solo exhibition
in New York. Robert Jack’s work is based on microbiological systems and
processes, making visible essential aspects of life that are overlooked due to
their imperceptible scale. The exhibition consists of two bodies of work: a
group of seven new paintings based on the way the eye perceives reality in
different species, and a collection of intimate scale drawings.
Replication, mutation,
and other evolutionary processes have been the main source for his drawings and
paintings. In this new body of work, the artist captures, amplifies, and
illuminates, the way the brain sorts, filters, and organizes the information
sent by the eye. The forms in the paintings refer to cones and rods, the
individual optical receptors which get bundled together to transmit visual
data. Robert Jack manipulates and interprets the anatomy of the eye from
felines, to bees, to humans, to create imaginary landscapes of restrained color
and form. He invents epic, sometimes psychedelic under-the-microscope
scenarios, encapsulating intimate rhythms and hazardous colors.
Dropout Amplifieris based on vision in the human eye in low light
conditions- where colors drop out, and contrasts dominate. The piece is
composed of 25 square panels arranged in a random 5 x 5 grid. The shapes are
made of a series of small, broken elements that resists the brain’s attempt to
create form. Each fragment is outlined with a different but similar grey,
further blurring the definition of the whole by distorting the brain’s attempt
to cypher the painting.
In A
Sense of Direction,
based on polarized vision in bees (who orient themselves in relation to the
sun), a scattered background of light and focused arcs offers a balanced
orientation for navigating through the world. In the same way, Prey and
Predator,
through a long horizontal structure, translates the vision experienced by
felines whose retina focuses along a linear horizon, the result of years of
evolution in savannas.
Other paintings portray the systems of transmission
themselves. Lateral pathways are laid out in stacked layers like roads conveying
continual streams of chemical stimulus from eye to brain. Also An Action, for instance, is a painting
that functions as a snapshot of information in different states of
transmission. In Remnant Production Patches, the shapes converge into a
series of transmitters sliced through in cross section.Hollow tubes, seen head on, awaiting
the reception of chemicals to affect how the brain interprets the world.
70 small-scale drawings
made over the past three years occupy an one wall. A journey through Robert Jack’s
investigation into mark making, the drawings documents crucial and slight
variations of structures, possible abysses and invisible gaps. They accumulate
signals, color vibrations, and variations impossible to detect without an
extraordinary level of attention.
Robert
Jack was born in 1971 in New Haven, Connecticut.He received his BS in Landscape Architecture from The City
College of New York in 1994. His work has been exhibited in numerous group
exhibitions in the United States as well as in Japan and Spain. The artist
lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Recent one person exhibitions include: The
Lower Tiers,
Galleria Paola Verrengia, Salerno, Italy (2008); Before and Aftermath, Josée Bienvenu Gallery, New
York, NY (2008); Elements of Histories, Brian Gross Fine Art, San Francisco, CA
(2007).Recent group exhibitions
include: microwave 7, Judi Rotenberg Gallery, Boston, MA (2009); Intricacies, Lohin Geduld Gallery, New
York, NY (2009); Drawn Twice, The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery
at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY (2006); Systems Now: a survey of
recent systematic art, Elvehjem Museum of Art (now Chanzen Museum of Art), Madison, WI (2005).
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