Jennifer Coates (CRF 2019) has a show up at High Noon Gallery, entitled Lesser Gods of Lakewood, PA, through January 16th.
“In this new body of work, minor deities of Greek myth appear like ghosts in the abstracted landscape of rural Pennsylvania. The figures merge with their surroundings as weeds and trees become a site of both Pagan ritual and painterly event. Through drawing and gardening, Coates has established a deep familiarity with the local flora. The plants she paints are mostly found in edge ecologies – threshold spaces where cultivation and wildness meet.
The large scale paintings hang together like tapestries with a variety of marks slowly accumulating in layers and zones to create a flickering but cohesive whole. The smaller paintings present more condensed narrative episodes. The works reflect an engagement with art history: they are like love letters to favorite artworks such as the House of Livia frescoes from Ancient Rome, Fra Angelico’s Noli Mi Tangere, Poussin’s drawings of the Triumph of Pan, as well as the paintings of Redon and Burchfield.” For more details, click here.