"I like Baroque drama," Jesse Mockrin told us earlier this year. "There are a lot of theatrical dancer expressions or physicality in the bodies. With reference material that I like to work from, it tends to be painters like Bronzino or Rubin's—where the emphasis on line was very clear, as opposed to somebody like Titian or Delacroix where it's really color based and textured. I am drawn to the more linear figuration." This quote led us to thinking about Mockrin's new solo show, The Venus Effect, opening at James Cohan in NYC on Septmeber 8th. Her work channels a contemporary take on European Old Master paintings, a reckoning of representation.
Jesse Mockrin notes, “Venus, Susannah, Bathsheba, Mary Magdalene–as well as witch, seductress, and sinner–are examples of the contradictory cultural narratives about women that are woven into Western European art history. The female body is the favored metaphor for lust, the life cycle and even painting itself. To me, these examples all pile on top of each other until the female body, like Atlas holding up the world, is left struggling under the weight of all that has been ascribed to it.”
