With: Here, 2020, signed verso, oil on limestone polymer on panel, 55.125”x 52”

“Dickinson's sources of abstraction are the momentary events in everyday life that interrupt and shift consciousness.”

Jessica Dickinson is interested in how the feeling of time passing can be at once physical, emotional, linguistic, and ephemeral—and, in turn, how her artworks can propose important sites of encounter within our increasingly disembodied contemporary environments. The distinct temporality, subtlety, and atmospheric nature of Dickinson’s work benefits from such an intimate solo encounter and careful curatorial approach.

This installation reflects the formal and conceptual exchanges that occur between the paintings and drawings within her studio, reflecting how they are installed as she works, while displaying the “remainders” on the floor, where they are made in the studio—alongside a new wall painting, directly invoking the passing of light and time across these works. Influenced by frescoes that become altered through chance and erosion, Dickinson's practice centers around dense, atmospheric abstract paintings that are created gradually over time with oil on a plaster-like surface.

Layers of repetitive marking and notching, aggressive chiseling, sudden removal, invisible labor, and illumination all become inscribed into the body of the painting. Dickinson makes only four paintings a year, each accompanied by her ongoing drawing projects that extend these ideas through their own particular materialities and modalities. Influenced by feminist thought that dislocates hierarchical terms around notions of the sublime, Dickinson's sources of abstraction are the momentary events in everyday life that interrupt and shift consciousness. Shapes of light and shadow become veils, obstructions, thresholds, or openings—materializing and monumentalizing the otherwise “minor.”

Jessica Dickinson, At: Through, 2018-2019, pastel, wax oil pastel and gouache on paper with rips and holes, 51 x 42 in

Jessica Dickinson's solo booth with James Fuentes

will be on view at the 2022 Armory Show

JAVITS CENTER, NYC

SEPTEMBER 9–11, 2022