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Lot Essay
I am more interested in delivering that ‘old painting experience’ that most of us will admit to enjoying, as a means of posing uncomfortable questions.
Jenna Gribbon (J. Gribbon, gallery press release Jenna Gribbon: Regarding Me Regarding You and Me, GNYP, Berlin, September 2020, on file)
Jenna Gribbon is one of today’s most perceptive and in-demand artists. Her painting acts both as an intimate portrait of contemporary relationships, and also as forensic examinations into the act of looking along with the traditional power dynamic inherent in the male gaze. Painted in 2020, Regarding Me Regarding You and Me is a rare large-scale painting that features both the artist and her wife and muse, the musician Mackenzie Scott. Looking to both art history and contemporary image making, Gribbon’s paintings examine how and why we look. “I have no desire to destroy the viewer’s pleasure, or my own,” she says. “I am more interested in delivering that ‘old painting experience’ that most of us will admit to enjoying, as a means of posing uncomfortable questions or making the viewer hyper-aware of their own role as consumers of beauty” (J. Gribbon, Jenna Gribbon: Regarding Me Regarding You and Me, GNYP, Berlin, September 2020, n.p.). The titular painting from her first solo exhibition outside of the United States, Regarding Me Regarding You and Me recontextualizes the genre of female portraiture for the twenty-first century.
In the present work, Gribbon’s portrayal of Mackenzie Scott is intensely personal one. Viewed through a tangle of limbs, Scott is seen relaxing on soft cushions. Her long blond hair frames her face, before tumbling down over her naked body. Her eyes engage the viewer with a penetrating gaze and despite her perceived vulnerability, she is defiantly in control. Much of her flesh is composed of broad applications of paint that range from soft, almost golden, tones to darker coral pinks, a range used to denote the varying shadows that fall across her body. Scott’s face however is more fully portrayed, imperceptible brushwork lavished with detailed attention portraying the delicate subtleties of human skin. The presence of a second pair of legs in the foreground indicates the presence of another person, placed in a position to be looking directly at Scott. Such close examination prompts questions, interrogations that lie at the very heart of the artist’s work. Who is looking at who? Is Scott looking at us the viewer or the person who’s legs are intertwined with hers? As Gribbon’s title for this work suggests, looking is far from being a simple, passive act.
Gribbon is the latest in a long, long line of artist’s who have painted the female nude: from Reubens to Ingres, and from Manet to Lucian Freud, the naked female figure has proved to be a prolific muse for countless painters. As Laura Mulvey notes in her seminal essay on the issue, traditionally there has been an sexual imbalance in act of looking, between the active/male and passive/female. Artists such as Mary Cassatt, Joan Semmel, and Jenny Saville have all tackled this question, but Gribbon’s approach is unique. By painting her wife, the nature of the desire is not questioned, it is accepted. “Do I have some kind of responsibility to not idealize this particular kind of beauty?” she often admits asking herself. “I just put my focus on the looking at the looking. What we’re all doing, is just painting about ourselves. I’m painting the way I’m looking at her” (J. Gribbon, quoted by A. M. Gingeras, ‘A Very Particular Type of Attention,’ ibid., p. 13).
Although rendered in a medium which has occupied many of male artists for generations, Gribbon is not afraid to adopt new technologies into her practice to introduce a distinctly contemporary resonance. She uses her cell phone as a sketchbook, taking and storing thousands of photos as potential ideas for paintings. Once she selects an image, she will produce a simple sketch before applying what she terms “juicy” oil paint to complete the picture (op. cit.). As can be seen in the present work, adopting the modes of looking that have resulted from the development of photography (close ups, cropping etc.) has added an important new dimension to her investigations into the power of looking, and from these initial small and intimate images, she is able to render powerful, large-scale paintings that that speak to today’s generation.
Jenna Gribbon (J. Gribbon, gallery press release Jenna Gribbon: Regarding Me Regarding You and Me, GNYP, Berlin, September 2020, on file)
Jenna Gribbon is one of today’s most perceptive and in-demand artists. Her painting acts both as an intimate portrait of contemporary relationships, and also as forensic examinations into the act of looking along with the traditional power dynamic inherent in the male gaze. Painted in 2020, Regarding Me Regarding You and Me is a rare large-scale painting that features both the artist and her wife and muse, the musician Mackenzie Scott. Looking to both art history and contemporary image making, Gribbon’s paintings examine how and why we look. “I have no desire to destroy the viewer’s pleasure, or my own,” she says. “I am more interested in delivering that ‘old painting experience’ that most of us will admit to enjoying, as a means of posing uncomfortable questions or making the viewer hyper-aware of their own role as consumers of beauty” (J. Gribbon, Jenna Gribbon: Regarding Me Regarding You and Me, GNYP, Berlin, September 2020, n.p.). The titular painting from her first solo exhibition outside of the United States, Regarding Me Regarding You and Me recontextualizes the genre of female portraiture for the twenty-first century.
In the present work, Gribbon’s portrayal of Mackenzie Scott is intensely personal one. Viewed through a tangle of limbs, Scott is seen relaxing on soft cushions. Her long blond hair frames her face, before tumbling down over her naked body. Her eyes engage the viewer with a penetrating gaze and despite her perceived vulnerability, she is defiantly in control. Much of her flesh is composed of broad applications of paint that range from soft, almost golden, tones to darker coral pinks, a range used to denote the varying shadows that fall across her body. Scott’s face however is more fully portrayed, imperceptible brushwork lavished with detailed attention portraying the delicate subtleties of human skin. The presence of a second pair of legs in the foreground indicates the presence of another person, placed in a position to be looking directly at Scott. Such close examination prompts questions, interrogations that lie at the very heart of the artist’s work. Who is looking at who? Is Scott looking at us the viewer or the person who’s legs are intertwined with hers? As Gribbon’s title for this work suggests, looking is far from being a simple, passive act.
Gribbon is the latest in a long, long line of artist’s who have painted the female nude: from Reubens to Ingres, and from Manet to Lucian Freud, the naked female figure has proved to be a prolific muse for countless painters. As Laura Mulvey notes in her seminal essay on the issue, traditionally there has been an sexual imbalance in act of looking, between the active/male and passive/female. Artists such as Mary Cassatt, Joan Semmel, and Jenny Saville have all tackled this question, but Gribbon’s approach is unique. By painting her wife, the nature of the desire is not questioned, it is accepted. “Do I have some kind of responsibility to not idealize this particular kind of beauty?” she often admits asking herself. “I just put my focus on the looking at the looking. What we’re all doing, is just painting about ourselves. I’m painting the way I’m looking at her” (J. Gribbon, quoted by A. M. Gingeras, ‘A Very Particular Type of Attention,’ ibid., p. 13).
Although rendered in a medium which has occupied many of male artists for generations, Gribbon is not afraid to adopt new technologies into her practice to introduce a distinctly contemporary resonance. She uses her cell phone as a sketchbook, taking and storing thousands of photos as potential ideas for paintings. Once she selects an image, she will produce a simple sketch before applying what she terms “juicy” oil paint to complete the picture (op. cit.). As can be seen in the present work, adopting the modes of looking that have resulted from the development of photography (close ups, cropping etc.) has added an important new dimension to her investigations into the power of looking, and from these initial small and intimate images, she is able to render powerful, large-scale paintings that that speak to today’s generation.