JAMESON GREEN: LOOK BACK, AND SMILE ON PERILS PAST

Almine Rech Paris is pleased to present "Look back, and smile on perils past", Jameson Green's second solo exhibition with the gallery.

November 23 – December 21, 2024

Hailing from New York, where he received his MFA from Hunter College, Green has long been fascinated with the relationship between the private self and the self forged through clashes with the body, the community, and the images that reflect these structures back to us. In his solo exhibition at Almine Rech Paris, “Look back, and smile on perils past”, the personal comes into often violent confrontation with the social and the historical, played out by the enigmatic characters on the face of the canvas.

Green’s approach to painting is deeply rooted in the art historical. As he begins his compositions, he draws inspiration from the works of his favorite artists through time. One may find stylistic and compositional parallels in the works of Picasso, Goya, Dana Schutz, Georg Baselitz — his inspirations are too numerous to count. Similar to the practice of sampling in hip-hop, Green repurposes these icons from art history, transforming them by placing them in a new context. The canon echoes throughout his practice, as if to say that his own work is only possible through interactions with the past, re-mixed for the conditions of the present.

Not all of Green’s characters are so personal; in fact, the majority of his figures are composites, representing types rather than specific individuals. However, like the portrait of the artist’s father, all of these characters are caught between the personal, and the interventions of the social and political. Their exaggerated, mask-like faces alienate them from the literal, while simultaneously drawing the viewer in to solve the puzzle that they present.

In an increasingly divided society, the practice of investing our own perspectives in each painting, in order to see what may otherwise be unknown to us, provides a rare avenue for better understanding. “Look back, and smile on perils past” poses a challenge – a challenge to face our own histories, our own biases, and to smile, knowing that we march onward.