Phillip Giordano

Jason Fox
Jackie, 2020
acrylic and pencil on canvas
55 x 55 x 1 1/2 inches
(139.7 x 139.7 x 3.8 cm)

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If Fox’s work seems to be driven, upon first glance, by representational concerns, closer examination reveals an overriding interest in textural and optical effects. Several paintings in this presentation are defined by an atmospheric application of paint that can be read in association with staining approaches used by artists like Helen Frankenthaler, in whose work paint and canvas become one, emphasizing the flatness of the picture plane. In Fox’s case, these washes become fields on which further pencil and paint treatment press to the foreground. The yellow shapes and areas of red that characterize Jackie (2020), for instance, straddle the line between control and chance, with transparent layers of acrylic employed to create the characteristic fusion of figures prominent throughout this presentation. A red dragon is superimposed over a ghostly blue rendering of Joni Mitchell holding a prairie lily; the portrait is based on the cover of Mitchell’s 1969 album Clouds, but Fox always transforms the initial readings of his visual quotations, making their familiarity strange and their iconicity a springboard for self-reflection and formal invention.

At the same time, the wide-ranging, public-facing ramifications of Fox’s distorted brand of realism—not to mention the tendency toward abstraction that is a pervasive presence—are often balanced by the inclusion of motifs sourced from his own life. His dog, who makes recurring appearances in his recent work, exemplifies how an artist’s home and studio environment invariably seep into even the most ardently non-objective artmaking.

Jason Fox
Untitled, 2020
acrylic and pencil on canvas
42 x 36 x 1 inches
(106.7 x 91.4 x 2.5 cm)

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Jason Fox
Untitled, 2020
acrylic and pencil on canvas
42 x 36 x 1 inches
(106.7 x 91.4 x 2.5 cm)

INQUIRE