RHV Fine Art

Jodi Chamberlain
April 5–May 3, 2009

Ms Chamberlain paints mysteriously psychological vignettes of towns or sailboats perched high in the air on impossible stilts. Sometimes oddly shaped humanoid figures populate these platforms set against emotionally charged colorful skies. The larger paintings in this exhibition that range in size from 18” x 18” to 36” x 36” are puzzling and sometimes unsettling. Chamberlain’s imagery evokes questions about our society’s sustainability or anxiety, or possibly her own version of glass houses. Either way, the house-of-cards-like tableau is further enhanced by the smallest paintings in the show. These 6” x 6” paintings of clothes lines with t-shirts or bras billowing in the wind add a personal and intimate aspect to the largely public narrative of the larger works. Painted with Cezanne-esque brush strokes in similar vivid palettes as the larger pieces, these snippets of domesticity lengthen the narrative of what might be happening behind the walls of these stilt-cities so high in the air.

Sailboats are evidence of Ms Chamberlain’s passion for boating but can also be read as metaphors for movement, escape or freedom. However, floating on stilts, the boats obviously can’t get the sailor anywhere. As in the city paintings, we are looking into a strange world of fiery pink, orange and purple sunsets or sunrises with no discernable space except what might be generated by gradations in the color and value of the sky.

Although painted in a well considered, controlled manner Chamberlain’s work strikes notes of whimsy and the absurd. Heightened by careful choices of color and value, the emotional content of her work, uncertainty, anxiety and doubt, is slowly revealed over repeat viewing.

See more of Jodi's work »

For inquiries please contact us at (718) 473-0819 or by email.

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