Air, 24 Hours

In Air: 24 Hours, Jennifer Bartlett creates her most personal paintings, all made between 1991 and 1992. Here, in each work, the unflinching presence of time is carefully, conspicuously monitored by a clock – light gray for day, dark gray for night. But motifs, color combinations, even certain images variously recur throughout the 24 paintings, shaking us up, causing us to realize that even the most seemingly casual, intimate scenes (a child’s bedroom, a bathroom, the garden fish pond) are the trappings of much larger concerns. Familiar hallmarks of Jennifer Bartlett’s earlier work – the relationship between parts and the whole, geometric structures and mathematically precise grids, a painterly sensuality and an almost obsessive fascination with repetition – take on new meaning in the 24 Hour series. Now they are employed to tell a story, to drive the narrative on, to take us deeper and deeper into some dark place. Fiction writer and playwright Deborah Eisenberg situates these paintings in the most unexpected and provocative ways. Commentaries on each of the plates become the springboard for an extensive conversation with the artist. A visual reference guide to each of the paintings further expands their discussion.