Brooklyn-based contemporary artist Marcus Jahmal uses experiences from his own personal history and family heritage to create his evocative, dreamlike paintings and sculptures.
Read MoreRooted in New York, the artist grew up in Brooklyn, and continues to live and work in Bushwick. His family however originates from Texas, New Orleans, and the Caribbean. This rich Southern and Creole heritage inspires much of the imagery in his current practice.
Jahmal is self-taught and began painting in 2010 after a brief stint in the video game industry, His early work was completed in acrylics and often on plexiglass, with the artist initially rejecting the use of traditional materials. More recent work has been completed on canvas using oils.
Working on several canvases simultaneously, his large-scale figurative paintings are often dreamscape in look and feel. They are often also imbued with a sense of narrative, akin to film stills, as if each canvas is paused on a climactic cinematic moment.
The artist has cited Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini's Book of Dreams (2007)—which he came across while working as a research assistant at a video game development company—as having a marked influence on his work. He also cites the neo-Expressionists of the late 20th century as influencing him, noting he was especially inspired by frequent visits to the local Brooklyn Museum, as well as visits to art galleries nearby the gaming company he worked for in Chelsea.
His imagery ranges from abstracted compositions of humans, animals, creatures from folklore and skulls, to strange, dreamlike scenes. These include landscapes, like Crocodillo (2017), in which pyramids appear to be sliding toward the open jaws of an anthropomorphic crocodile god, and interiors, such as Dock at Dusk (2016), with its bewildering tilted perspective of an unsettling living room.
Jahmal's practice is rooted in music, with both his family' involvement in music (his grandfather was a jazz trumpeter), and Brooklyn's hip hop scene influencing his work. Music is present in his painting compositions through visual references to sheet music and instruments. He has compared his choice and use of colour to composing melodies too. In his sculptural practice references to upside-down djembes, a West African drum, can be seen too.
Although chiefly an artist, Jahmal has also delved into curation, having curated two group exhibitions: Yard Show (2018) at Shrine Gallery in New York focusing on African diaspora artists, and Different Strokes (2021) at Almine Rech in London featuring fellow New York-based artists.
Marcus Jahmal's work is represented in collections across the globe, including Aishti Foundation, Beirut; Allentown Museum, Pennsylvania; ICA Miami, Florida; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, California; The Perimeter, London; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and Zuzeum Art Centre, Rīga.
Marcus Jahmal has been the subject of both solo and group exhibitions.
Solo exhibitions include: Spiral, Almine Rech, London (2022); Mining, Anton Kern Gallery, New York (2022); GUMBO, CAC Passerelle Brest, Bretagne (2019); Solid Ghosts, Almine Rech, Brussels (2018); MetaVisions, CANADA, New York, NY (2016); and No Place Like Home, FiveMyles Brooklyn, NY (2016).
Group exhibitions include Fire Figure Fantasy: Selections from ICA Miami's Collection, ICA Miami, Floria (2022); Figurative Vocabularies, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, California (2022); American Figure Painting Now: New Nouveau, Mao Space Gallery, Shanghai and Qingdao City Art Museum, Qingdao (2021); and 100 Drawings, The Drawing Center, New York (2020).
Marcus Jahmal's website can be found here, and his Instagram can be found here.
Articles on Marcus Jahmal have been published in various publications, including Brooklyn Rail, The New Yorker, and The New York Times.
Rachel Kubrick | Ocula | 2023
