JENNY BROSINSKI
Moskito, 2019
Oil, spray paint, olive oil, charcoal, chlorine and glue on canvas
130 x 190 cm
Choi & Lager is pleased to present Goofy, Jenny Brosinski’s first solo exhibition at Choi & Lager Gallery Cologne. The exhibition features a new body of work including paintings, drawings, and ceramics - all conceived specifically for the gallery space and in line with the title of the exhibition.
If the signature is a culprit, then the painted is the scene of the crime. A crime scene without a crime, but a place of painterly occurrence. Ambiguous, consisting of clues and traces, of symbols, secret languages, and decisions - the temporal sequence of which anachronistically converges in a single pictorial moment.
The black line in ‘Lickin Horse’ could be a horse’s face. The red maybe blood. Underneath
it says “Figs.” The figurative associations were not an easy decision to make - “especially in the beginning, it’s hard to bear,” says Jenny Brosinski. In ‘You keep sayin you got somethin for me’ is a white leg with a shoe. For the exhibition Goofy she also wanted to leave room for other, aesthetic avenues. Goofy also stands for silliness, for imperfection, for slip-ups. It refers to the cartoon character of the same name, and putting the wrong foot forward when skateboarding. The title is tongue in cheek; painting is not meant to be understood in a purely conceptual or intellectual way. It's also about the willingness to fall down. She has undertaken this willingness here in the form of the black and white lines that suddenly become contours. But something else is happening in ‘Lickin Horse’ - a scraggly patch of yellow is spilling out, pushing aside the soft brown. The lighter greenish-blue becomes a shy admirer. At this moment, what is figurative is lost again, its trace is fleeting, and the painterly occurrence becomes the actual motif. “Occurrence” means that which has taken place.
The black line in ‘Lickin Horse’ could be a horse’s face. The red maybe blood. Underneath
it says “Figs.” The figurative associations were not an easy decision to make - “especially in the beginning, it’s hard to bear,” says Jenny Brosinski. In ‘You keep sayin you got somethin for me’ is a white leg with a shoe. For the exhibition Goofy she also wanted to leave room for other, aesthetic avenues. Goofy also stands for silliness, for imperfection, for slip-ups. It refers to the cartoon character of the same name, and putting the wrong foot forward when skateboarding. The title is tongue in cheek; painting is not meant to be understood in a purely conceptual or intellectual way. It's also about the willingness to fall down. She has undertaken this willingness here in the form of the black and white lines that suddenly become contours. But something else is happening in ‘Lickin Horse’ - a scraggly patch of yellow is spilling out, pushing aside the soft brown. The lighter greenish-blue becomes a shy admirer. At this moment, what is figurative is lost again, its trace is fleeting, and the painterly occurrence becomes the actual motif. “Occurrence” means that which has taken place.
What has occurred are the placements, and the interactions between them. Between the colours, the dynamism of the strokes, large letters, the scribbles, folds, lines, and footprints.
These placements are not as unambiguous as a language, nor are they as analytical as a
drawing. Jenny Brosinski’s abstract, minimalist painting is surprisingly concrete in its
reference to itself. Her aesthetic allows no lies, no trickery; every stroke and every trace are visible and become a clear assertion. But remains just that. The artist rejects illusions.
In ‘And now someone else is getting all your best’ a form, or the lack thereof, is on the brink of disintegration. Only the four pink lines hold the preceding dark green together and secure its orientation. Maybe it's a competition, a tension between the urge to escalate and the desire to remain as its rational self. Between energetic expression and the cool freedom that minimalism provides. The baby blue and bright yellow in Chinese New Year are also in competition. Supported – as well as fueled - by the contrast with the deep black, it remains uncertain whether it is the blue cast with its scribbled edges or the short yellow spray line that constitutes the dominant element of this work.
These placements are not as unambiguous as a language, nor are they as analytical as a
drawing. Jenny Brosinski’s abstract, minimalist painting is surprisingly concrete in its
reference to itself. Her aesthetic allows no lies, no trickery; every stroke and every trace are visible and become a clear assertion. But remains just that. The artist rejects illusions.
In ‘And now someone else is getting all your best’ a form, or the lack thereof, is on the brink of disintegration. Only the four pink lines hold the preceding dark green together and secure its orientation. Maybe it's a competition, a tension between the urge to escalate and the desire to remain as its rational self. Between energetic expression and the cool freedom that minimalism provides. The baby blue and bright yellow in Chinese New Year are also in competition. Supported – as well as fueled - by the contrast with the deep black, it remains uncertain whether it is the blue cast with its scribbled edges or the short yellow spray line that constitutes the dominant element of this work.
The great freedom Jenny Brosinski gives to her painterly elements is unmistakable. Colours and strokes breathe here, show themselves overtly, and conceal nothing. In the preceding process, however, Jenny Brosinski also applies immense pressure into her work. She manipulates dirt, olive oil, and shoes, extracts paint with chlorine, cuts, sews together, glues or repeatedly puts the canvas in the washing machine. In doing so, she also surprises herself, playing with happenstance and control, with the skillful and the unintentional. Above them are marks from a spray can, inspired by the construction workers' markings on the street, which look like secret codes to the unaware. Towards the end, she confronts the question of what the painting actually needs and what it doesn’t. Then she subtracts, removes, minimizes – in other words, she creates a new free space.
In contrast to the paintings are her sculptures. They are figurative, in the form of monsters, fantasy creatures, an inelegant jug or a vomiting dolphin. As a blueprint, Jenny Brosinski makes small ceramics that are later cast in bronze or carved from limestone. Their size resembles children, so the figures remain essentially playful. In proximity to her paintings, however, the sculptures also act as living beings that observe her paintings, and perhaps even more so, originate from them - from the landscapes that seem abstract only to the human eye.
- Larissa Kikol
