Jaclyn Conley (b. 1979) was born in Ontario, Canada, and is now based in New Haven, CT. Conley has exhibited nationally and internationally at venues including The Painting Center, NY, NurtureArt, NY, Projective City, Paris, Wynick-Tuck Gallery, Toronto, and the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield CT.
Read MoreInspired by historical events, departing from a photograph or a painting, Conley's work connects key social and political concerns of our time with a sense of pictorial beauty. Through the use of collages and thick brushstrokes, Conley plays with the materiality to convey a story. The features and figures in the artist's work are defied and disrupted by a painterly ambiguity, building on her interpretation of the source image. What stands out in Conley's work is this materiality in relation to the indexicality of the departing photograph. Where the photograph is an evidence of reality, the painting through its materiality and its disrupted faceless figures contribute to a certain abstraction. Additionally, there is a certain gesture and textuality present which is opposed to the flatness and documentary evidence of the initial photograph, encouraging the viewer to connect with the painting and leaving him to question the story behind it.
Text courtesy Maruani Mercier.
