NYAB Event - Jennifer Aldridge “Floodplain”

Jennifer Aldridge “Floodplain”

First Street Gallery

This event has ended.

In her first show at First Street Gallery, artist Jennifer Aldridge acknowledges, “Every artist’s job is to notice what she notices.” All of the work in this exhibit of paintings consist of water media on paper. The gallery is located at 526 W. 26th St. (between 10th & 11th Avenues), NYC. Gallery hours are Tuesday-Saturday, 11 AM – 6 PM.

Aldridge emphasizes how much we, as first world citizens, are inundated with imagery—an opening of the floodplains. “Is there, will there be a gain for civilization, when even the mundane is ceaselessly documented?” Aldridge asks. “I read, watch, see ‘newsworthy’ events, ancient history, personal dramas, conjecture and arguments, the retelling of mythologies, daily minutiae and silliness. This consumption takes less dedication than watching television, or even listening to a song. Evolving technologies allow us to witness, unlike any other time in history, second-by-second increases of novel visual information. A time-consuming hobby pieced together from morning to night, in between everything.”

Striking natural forms conflict with very human strife, self-obsession, and artistry. All of this is found in ephemeral, digital media. The weightless burden of all the imagery, the mental busyness, is seen by the artist as an amplifier of any obsession she has ever chosen to nurture. Clicking contracts and condenses her world, due to the learning nature of the branded search engine.

Aldridge’s work has been dedicated to water media (mostly watercolor, some acrylic) for its texture and immediacy, the range of experimental possibilities, and the intimacy of working on paper. “The transparency of watercolor can quite literally expose process,” which she chooses to allow, and celebrates. The elegance of line drawing is enhanced by mineral pigments.

The grid is employed to psychologically flatten the affect of the content. The grid is an attempt to control the flood of visual information.

As a child, Aldridge learned from her mother that sewn stitches are judged by predictable length and spacing. From her mother, she learned to keep her hands busy. A nod to three- dimensional life space, stitching connects some of the paintings, referencing traditional divisions of labor by gender and ancient mythologies concerning the threads of Fate. Snags, knots, breaks, repetition-all relevant, all symbolic, a runic language read by any persons who would work with their hands.

[Image: Jennifer Aldridge “Mutually Assured” watercolor on paper, 15” x 30”, 2013]