September 14, 2005, Philadelphia, PA—An exhibition of new works by Jennifer Bartlett, Binary Images: Shaped Canvases and Plate Paintings, will be on view at Locks Gallery from October 1 through November 12, 2005. The opening reception will be held on Friday, October 7th from 5:30–7:30 pm. Admission is free and open to the public.
This series of paintings will be shown for the first time at the Locks Gallery exhibition. The show consists of 11 diptychs: 6 pairs of oil paintings on polygonal-shaped canvases and 5 pairs of painted, baked enamel steel plates. Bartlett's use of the grid is revisited here with complex dotting and webbing of colors that simultaneously unifies and repels the components of the diptych—creating a lively tension within each piece. As in the past, these new paintings by Bartlett represent a delicate balance between the conceptual and sensory, between stability and unrest.
Bartlett graduated from Yale University with an M.F.A. in painting in 1965. Bartlett's first major exhibition, a single but monumental piece, Rhapsody (1976) astounded critics with its encyclopedic demonstration of painting as a subject. She has continued a diligent and unabashed approach to the act of painting that is both systematic and intuitive in origin.
In an article that will appear in the Fall 2005 issue of BOMB Magazine, Bartlett is interviewed by long-time friend and colleague, Elizabeth Murray, and she describes, for the first time in her own words, the derivation of her steel plate paintings and the conception of Rhapsody (1976), as well as her recent series of diptychs. The interview is also excerpted in a new publication that accompanies the Locks Gallery exhibition.
In the Fall of 2006, The Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Massachusetts will host a Jennifer Bartlett retrospective of her plate paintings from 1970–77.
