Jenny Dubnau: Regarding
February 10 – March 12, 2022
Satchel Projects is pleased to present Regarding, an exhibition of recent paintings by Jenny Dubnau, on view from February 10 – March 12, 2022 at 526 W 26th Street #620. This is the inaugural exhibition of Satchel Projects.
The gallery will host an opening reception with the artist on Friday, Feb 11 from 3PM to 7PM. Masks and proof of vaccination are required for entry, and capacity in the exhibition space will be limited.
Jenny Dubnau’s work is a contemporary re-envisioning of realist portraiture. Beyond the subtle but unmistakable signs of the present-day individual — a tattoo, a hairstyle, a piercing — the works in this show deftly push painterly language beyond established historical norms and categories, situating themselves firmly in the contemporary era.
The paintings in Jenny Dubnau: Regarding were all created during the last several years, and are based on images from in-person photo sessions with the sitters. The photographs from these sessions record transient expressions that flicker across the subject’s face. In the age of the “live photo,” the artist uses photography to draw out micro-moments of awkwardness and vulnerability. Dubnau mines the resulting images via painting — a kind of “slow looking” — to dig deep into the multiplicity of encounters between subject, viewer, and painter. The person is conjured for the viewer, in all their physicality and presence.
In these paintings, the paint itself carries metaphor. Dubnau uses the analogy of hot vs cool jazz to describe metaphorical languages: the “heat” and emotion of human interaction is tempered by the coolness and distance of the photo to arrive at a painted image that is immediate, present and arresting.