UNTITLED ART MIAMI 2022

November 28 - December 3

In Jennifer Coates's recent paintings, ancient deities appear like ghosts in the abstracted landscape of rural Pennsylvania. Figures merge with their surroundings as weeds and trees become a site of both Pagan ritual and painterly event. The works hang together like tapestries with a variety of marks slowly accumulating in layers and zones to create a flickering but cohesive whole.  Coates is in conversation with art history, engaging Modernist landscapes, Baroque painting, and ancient Roman frescoes. Light effects are amplified and color is intensified, suffusing the paintings with the glow of synthetic chemistry. While oil paint references earth and flesh, Coates's use of acrylic paint speaks to the history of plastics and dyes. Fluorescent paints, colors of safety and warning, are used to heighten the dense, hallucinatory scenes.