two solos: oil & clay

Jenny Bloomfield & Dennis O’Leary

Jack Fischer Gallery is pleased to be showing the paintings of Jenny Bloomfield and the sculptures of Dennis O’Leary. The show is simply called two solos: oil and clay. Jenny Bloomfield speaks of relying on memory for her paintings, which illustrate an intuitive approach to mark making. In fact the paintings begin, as Bloomfield puts it: “making broad abstract marks…..then finding their own rhythm and composition." As the work progresses and layers are built up, the nature of the paintings begin to assert themselves and we become privy to an intimate moment between the artist and the canvas. These are not pretty or decorative paintings, as they straddle that fine line between abstract and figurative.

What is striking about the Bloomfield paintings and her process is an echo with O’Leary’s sculptures and their emergence. O’Leary speaks of “manipulating very wet clay into a rough abstract shape before carving the still wet forms into a completed state." The forms of the wet clay and the handling of them by O’Leary are really governed by the inherent qualities of the clay and the intuitive aspect of the artist’s hands as the clay and the hands find the dance.  Once again, the viewer is allowed a glimpse of an intimate relationship between media and artist.

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