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Lot Essay
The arresting gaze of Jamita acts as an enigmatic emblem of the distinctive portraiture that distinguishes John Currin’s oeuvre. Here, the artist’s subject is held in his idealized perception, but the woman directs her own gaze away, out of the frame and avoiding eye contact with the viewer. Bathed in warm tones of mauve and brick, Jamita is inviting but slightly apprehensive while sharing such an intimate space with the viewer. Her luminous skin, rendered in buttery cream, highlights the depth of the figure’s gaze, her intensity and her composure.
The artist’s work, often lying at the crossroads of desire and despair, here takes on an intimacy that his different than his dramatically composed paintings. Currin’s sense of the voyeuristic is instead brought close, to a single figure in a gentle frame. While not erotic as his early work, this portrait is no less confrontational. With dramatic brush strokes, the subject’s face is rendered in expressive gestures, capturing a moment just after motion, as she looks aside. She is in reverie, but not lost; her gaze is direct and potent.
Currin, who combines Old Master and Mannerist painting techniques with modern subjects, is best known for creating sensual and expressive fields of soft color. Drawing on styles from fashion magazines, pornography, and other commercial sources, his uniting of disparate historical sources is a seductive combination. Jamita exudes a style that is less Renaissance and more 1950s painting, evoking the haunting portraiture of the American master Edward Hopper.
The artist’s work, often lying at the crossroads of desire and despair, here takes on an intimacy that his different than his dramatically composed paintings. Currin’s sense of the voyeuristic is instead brought close, to a single figure in a gentle frame. While not erotic as his early work, this portrait is no less confrontational. With dramatic brush strokes, the subject’s face is rendered in expressive gestures, capturing a moment just after motion, as she looks aside. She is in reverie, but not lost; her gaze is direct and potent.
Currin, who combines Old Master and Mannerist painting techniques with modern subjects, is best known for creating sensual and expressive fields of soft color. Drawing on styles from fashion magazines, pornography, and other commercial sources, his uniting of disparate historical sources is a seductive combination. Jamita exudes a style that is less Renaissance and more 1950s painting, evoking the haunting portraiture of the American master Edward Hopper.