J E N N A P I R E L LO
H O N E Y, H O N E Y H I
Jenna Pirello: Honey, Honey Hi Jim Kempner Fine Art is pleased to announce Honey Honey, Hi, the first solo exhibition of paintings by contemporary American painter, Jenna Pirello. The exhibition will feature a series of new process-based paintings from 2018-19 that explore abstraction, surface texture, and color. The exhibition will be on view from June 15th through July 21st, 2019. An opening reception will be held Saturday, June 15th, from 5-7pm. Created over the last year, Pirello’s newest body of work explores her crucial relationship to the world around her. As the artist describes, we are bombarded with new and old technology, visual imagery within everyday life, and the constant aftermath of a highly mediated social and political context. These paintings act as visual escapes from these external forces and pressures, creating exciting and positive portals into worlds outside of our own. Starting with black grounds, each layer of vivacious color is then built up and scraped away to create a highly complex and tactile surface. Through this additive and subtractive process, Pirello’s serial method of mark making is highlighted and allows the viewer to get lost in her abstract language. Pirello’s practice, thus, explores this interaction between the external and the internal, further investigating how her process allows for a meditative practice in a contrarily bustling environment. Pirello’s paintings reflect an honest study and conceptualization of what the “mark” means in the creative process and practice of painting. Ice Cold’s (2019) monochromatic palette presents the viewer with a tranquil visual field, allowing them to focus on the layered and intricate marks displayed. Pirello’s marks range from large to small, fast and frantic to slow and methodical, even deep and dark to light and airy. In this painting, the mark and color work together to invite the viewer to enter into a deeper reflection on both the surface quality and Pirello’s meditative state. The process of making and viewing are intimate practices for Pirello, and each painting asks that we recall how various creative genres-- music, media, poetry, and literature-- interdependently coexist and inform one another. As the artists says, “I am absorbing internally and mentally while I’m producing with my hands. I’m a sponge for information while I’m making, and listen to a range of things: news, riot music, and other streams of information.” The show, titled after a Fleetwood Mac song, Honey, Hi, demonstrates how music and lyrics are integral to Pirello’s practice and exploration for her own visual languages. Her paintings are titularly named after songs written by female artists that Pirello listens to while painting, which sets both the mood of the work and the intention. Slow Disco II (2019), titled after St. Vincent’s Slow Disco, visually takes on a similar sense of lyricism as the vivid chromatic shapes pop on the black background and ebb and flow around the perimeter of the painting. Heads Down, Chin Up (2019), Gold Dust Woman (2019), and Dig Me In - Dig Me Out (2018) reflect a similar exploration of color and also present a subliminal, stripped-down landscape composition. These “mental landscapes,” as Pirello terms them, demonstrate depth both physically and metaphysically. Living in a time when external factors such as the news and mediated information are inescapable, Pirello’s paintings are exciting moments of reprieve and mitigation. Jenna Pirello currently lives and works in Portland, ME. She received her MFA in Painting from Yale University in 2014 and her BFA from Boston University in 2011. She was recently awarded a Fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA in 2018. Her work has been featured in multiple exhibitions throughout Boston, MA and Portland, ME. In addition to a feature in ArtMaze Magazine in 2018, Pirello will be highlighted in the 2019 Northeast Edition of New American Paintings, a critically acclaimed juried exhibition and periodical dedicated to presenting work by new artistic talent.
Ice Cold, 2019. Acrylic on wood panel. 44 x 36 x 1�.
I Bet It Stung II, 2019. Acrylic on wood panel. 44 x 36 x 1�.
My Face is Red from Reading Your Red Lips, 2019. Acrylic on wood panel. 44 x 32 x 1�.
Slow Disco II, 2019. Acrylic on wood panel. 44 x 60 x 1”.
Heads Down, Chin Up, 2019. Acrylic paint on wood. 36 x 30 x 1”.
Fade Into You, 2019. Acrylic on wood panel. 18 x 16 x 1”.
Sugar Boy III, 2019. Acrylic on wood panel. 17 x 12 x 1”.
Sugar Boy II, 2019. Acrylic on wood panel. 13 x 12 x 1”. Sugar Boy I, 2019. Acrylic on wood panel. 15 x 12 1/8 x 1”.
Sugar Boy IV, 2019. Acrylic on wood panel. 15 1/8 x 10 x 1”.
Take the Flowers, 2018. Acrylic on wood panel. 16 x 12 x 1”.
Moonbeam, 2019. Acrylic paint on wood. 24 x 18�.
Dig Me In - Dig Me Out, 2018. Acrylic on wood panel. 30 x 10 x 1”. Don’t Touch Me- I’m a Real Live Wire, 2019. Acrylic paint on wood. 30 x 24”.
Gold Dust Woman, 2019. Acrylic paint on wood. 36 x 40�.
Alibi, 2019. Acrylic on wood panel. 18 x 17 x 1”. Taste Test, 2017. Acrylic on wood panel. 8 1/4 x 10 1/4 x 1”. Sugar Boy, 2019. Acrylic on wood panel. 16 1/2 x 12 x 1”.
Sister Honey, 2018. Acrylic on wood panel. 16 x 12 x 1”. Soft Shock, 2017. Acrylic on wood panel. 18 x 14 x 1”. Sugar Boy, 2019. Acrylic on wood panel. 17 x 12 x 1”.
JIM KEMPNER FINE ART Jim Kempner Fine Art specializes in contemporary paintings, sculpture, photography, and works on paper, with a special emphasis on contemporary master prints and outdoor sculpture. Our inventory appeals to the established as well as beginning collector. We work closely with art advisors, designers, corporations and museums to expand and enrich their varied collections. Located in the heart of Chelsea, the gallery’s three story modernist-inspired structure designed by architects Smith & Thompson boasts one of the few outdoor sculpture gardens in New York City, and is included in a number of books about contemporary architecture. Our inventory includes work by Donald Baechler, John Baldessari, Louise Bourgeois, Christo, Chuck Close, Richard Diebenkorn, Jim Dine, Sam Francis, Helen Frankenthaler, Spencer Finch, Jane Hammond, David Hockney, Howard Hodgkin, Jasper Johns, Deborah Kass, Alex Katz, Ellsworth Kelly, William Kentridge, Jeff Koons, Robert Mangold, Robert Motherwell (Jim Kempner Fine Art represents the Dedalus Foundation, Robert Motherwell’s print archive, in New York), Sol Lewitt, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Longo, Elizabeth Peyton, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, Ed Ruscha, Paula Scher, Sean Scully, Frank Stella, Donald Sultan, Wayne Thiebaud, Andy Warhol and others. Among the contemporary artists whose work we represent are Robert Attanasio, Christopher Beane, Stanley Casselman, Long Bin Chen, Eduardo del Valle and Mirta Gómez, Rinaldo Frattolillo, Gianfranco Gorgoni, John Grande, John Henry, Charlie Hewitt, Jay Kelly, Nora Ligorano and Marshall Reese, Jerry Mischak, David Mitchell, Craig Norton, Greg Parker, Robert Petersen, Randy Regier, Tom Slaughter, Pal Svensson and Boaz Vaadia. Formerly a private dealer, Jim Kempner opened his gallery, Jim Kempner Fine Art, at its present location in the fall of 1997. Sarah Browne has been the associate director since 2011 and the gallery director since October 2018. Jim Kempner has published prints by Rinaldo Frattolillo, Charlie Hewitt, Robert Indiana, Paula Scher, Bernar Venet, in addition to Gianfranco Gorgoni’s photographs of Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty. Other publications include Ligorano/Reese’s Line Up portfolio, Untitled 2001 silkscreen, and the DEMOCRACY lightbox, made in collaboration with former gallery director Dru Arstark, under the name Madness of Art Editions. Additionally, he has published his first editioned print, Apocryphal Now, in 2014.
“Honey, honey, honey Who could be sweeter than you Honey, honey, honey Bittersweet, what can I do…” -Fleetwood Mac
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Slow Disco II, 2019. Acrylic on wood panel. 44 x 60 x 1”.