![]() The colors are warm and earthy, recalling the waning golden light on a crisp fall day. There are red scissors, a wire plant hanger, magazines strewn on the floor. Unlike with traditional portraits, I am drawn away from the figure, who sits on a maroon couch, to the objects sharing space with them. “Interior” (2021) depicts a person in their apartment. ![]() Packer’s portraits often showcase her friends and artistic peers. Packer created most of the work in the last year, compelled to process the suspension and horror of 2020 into elegiac mood studies that wrestle with the collective sense of exhaustion, fear, and longing. Installation view of Jennifer Packer: Every Shut Eye Ain’t Sleep, at MOCA Grand Avenue (image courtesy the Museum of Contemporary Art, photo by Jeff Mclane)Įvery Shut Eye Ain’t Sleep, Packer’s debut West Coast solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), gathers 25 new and recent works that explore the limits of painting and representation through portraits, still lifes, and charcoal drawings. I’m interested in environment as much as the figures that sit within it,” she explained in a video for the Serpentine. I’m interested in the codependency of humans existing in spaces along with other really important information. “I’m not interested in the hierarchy that portraiture suggests. Can portraiture capture the essential character of the subject? Or is that even the point?īronx-based artist Jennifer Packer considers these questions when creating her own sumptuous oil paintings. Despite the ubiquity, the visual form brings up juicy questions around truth and representation. Now, formal and informal portraits populate our social media feeds, becoming another facet of modern living. Before the advent of photography, it was the only way of documenting - through painting, drawing, or sculpture - the appearance of someone. In the past, portraits were used to convey the power, beauty, and wealth of the sitter. As viewers, we are encouraged to zero in on the isolated figure, discarding any detail that exists outside this tight perspective. ![]() This setting succinctly distills the logic of traditional portraiture. The subject is in sharp focus, while the background remains a hazy blur. LOS ANGELES - When thinking of portraits, my mind defaults to the features of the iPhone camera setting. ![]()
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