Jigsaw
Paintings by Leonard Rosenfeld, Livia Stein, and Lucy Traeger
date. July 15 thru August 13
opening. Friday. July 15. 5 - 8 pm
The works in Jigsaw prod the viewer to puzzle the pieces together, connect the dots, and ask themselves, “Who is doing what?”
In Salute to a Stripe by Leonard Rosenfeld, what appears to be a carnival act is, with closer inspection, something more nefarious. A circular round of cause and effect seems to take place in real time. Rather than remaining a bystander, the viewer becomes complicit in the action as they witness events unfold.
In Lucy Traeger’s, The Hunt, two little girls holding baskets are a tableau of a perfect moment in time. Traeger fits the pieces so neatly together that the girls seem to have been frozen in this space from time immemorial. In her painting, Toss, we walk into an event taking place as if we had opened a door at just the critical moment. The action is stopped midstream, but what is actually occurring is not so clear. Is what appears alarming at first sight really just be a benign domestic scene? The viewer is left to puzzle these questions.
Disparate beings and objects performing an opaque narrative populate Livia Stein’s No Contest. As the casts of characters move around what looks like a stage, their various interactions appear thick with plots and subplots. Inspired by opera streamed over the course of the pandemic, Stein’s fantastical apparitions invite the viewer to invent music and lyrics in their imagination.
works in show
A kindling; unfurled.
A Solo Exhibition by Prajakti Jayavant
date. July 15 thru August 13
opening. Friday. July 15. 5 - 8 pm
Prajakti Jayavant’s distinct and highly intuitive practice is an inquiry into the relationship between shape and color. She mixes complex colors that are situated at the fulcrum of possibilities, in that they can be several colors at once. A painting that at first glance appears “white” for example, might also be described as “blue” or even “yellow."
Jayavant paints, bends, creases, and cuts heavy sheets of paper until she achieves an idiosyncratic and autonomous shape that is as complex and unexpected as her color choices. Even though the finished works appear minimal, they possess an abundance of detail, bearing subtle marks which manifest themselves as emotional shifts within the larger work itself. Every action Jayavant takes coalesces into a magical synchronicity of form and content. The finished works have a living presence that hum and hover on the wall, each one individual and unique. When we look at Jayavant’s work we recognize a living entity like ourselves, consisting of an exterior form that embodies untold stories and histories within. This recognition is the purest relationship we can have with art.
Prajakti Jayavant had an exhibition, Ping Pong, with The San Francisco Arts Education Project at Minnesota Projects in June, 2022. She will show at Round Weather Gallery in Oakland this August. Jayavant has exhibited at the Drawing Center, New York, curated by Luis Camnitzer, and at Meridian Gallery, San Francisco, in shows separately curated by Lawrence Rinder and John Zarobell. Both exhibitions were reviewed by Kenneth Baker in the San Francisco Chronicle. She was a recipient for the Visions from the New California award and for artist in residence fellowships at the Djerassi Residence Artists Program and at Headlands Center for the Arts.
