NYAB Event - Jeff Perrott "Empty Canvas"

Jeff Perrott "Empty Canvas"

Morgan Lehman Gallery

This event has ended.

In his new body of inkjet on canvas works, Perrott attempts to dismantle visual perception and distort the quotidian images that represent his daily life and art practice. Images of his studio, family, and places in his life are fragmented into an orderly system. The resulting affect is pixilated and repurposed imagery; the compositions consist of a multitude of various- sized black and primary-colored dots or circles. The patterned regularity of the portioned image into a cellular structure has a potential for visual chaos. Every particle of visual information is contained within its own cell, making it difficult for the mind to decipher the imagery when viewing it up close. It is as if an attempt to organize the intangibility of memory and perception is taking place.

Space is given to the viewer to play their part in bringing clarity to the work. The canvases seem to have an invisible screen or a veil that conceals the details, giving a glimpse into what is there and somehow protecting the privacy and vulnerability of the subjects. As one walks farther away from the works the imagery becomes more visible, allowing a visual safety to the imagery. The distance between the canvas and viewer, created by the barrier of pixilation, serves only to make the subject of each work that much more tantalizing, just barely out of one's grasp.

Inspired by his project "END", a collaboration that began in 2006 with Douglas Weathersby- Environmental Services, where artwork was transformed with saws and a chipper into dust or 'artmulch', Perrott created this new body of work responding to a similar impetus.