Off The Plain
With All This Freedom What Is Your Duty? (2013, installation)
Off The Plain
TJ Norris Curatorial Commentary: My first interaction with Jacqueline’s work was a decade ago in a 2003 group exhibition (curated by Jeff Jahn) in which both our work was shown in the same cavernous warehouse space. Her work was a painted sculptural piece that protruded off the wall and I was immediately drawn to her obvious tact for color and spatial relationships. My work which was juxtaposed on the other side of the large rectangular room, stripped of color, remaining neutral, near stoic. The differences played well. Five years later both Ehlis and myself would be selected for the innovative Couture series that was presented by the (now sadly defunct) NAAU. For this series, and a few subsequent projects I’ve noticed Ehlis incorporating the photographic image in her work, often somewhat candid (though people-less) images from her travels.
The act of incorporating an image opposing industrial painterly techniques further intrigued me in terms of a potential sub-practice of the artist that slowly has emerged over time. And the inclusion if the image here didn’t seem wrought with trope, yet a socio-economic bulb flickered while I watched the piece emerge in her studio over a few visits. In the central slope, you witness common building materials painted in what you may think is any old shade of beige, however, after Ehlis surveyed a few of the top retailers of paint in the region this particular color is the most popular of all in the rainbow. The night before she and I met for the unveiling of the piece I had just watched a documentary called The Queen of Versailles - and something clicked full-tilt. Her work about as she called it “slippage” in this era of foreclosure, the stripped-down second look at the gaudy side of Americana in the 21st century made complete sense in an instant.
April 27, 2013 Posted by iheartportland
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