ABSTRACTION UNBOUND // VIRGINIA JARAMILLO: PRINCIPLE OF EQUIVALENCE AT THE KEMPER

by Olivia Dailey

The groundbreaking career retrospective, Virginia Jaramillo: Principle of Equivalence, shows at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Missouri, from June 2 through August 27. Virginia Jaramillo is an abstract Mexican American painter whose career began over sixty years ago. The exhibition contains seventy-three paintings and handmade paper works, two of which are in Kemper’s permanent collection: Principle of Equivalence (1975) and Anonymous Site #1-603 (1990). Her work explores themes of physics, science fiction, the cosmos, and place.

Born in Texas, growing up in Los Angeles, then living in Paris for a year before settling in New York, Virginia Jaramillo has always been a part of the art community, consistently making thoughtful work. However, she did not receive her deserved recognition until only a few years ago. Her first solo museum exhibition was in 2020 in honor of the 50th anniversary of The DeLuxe Show in Houston, considered one of the first racially integrated art exhibitions in the United States. Jaramillo was the only female and only Latina to participate in the show. She exhibited Green Dawn (1970), which is included in Principle of Equivalence. A large-scale, vivid green canvas, Green Dawn is a part of her significant Curvilinear Paintings series. A thin yellow line, resembling thread, drapes over the upper right corner of the painting. Like a bright dandelion in a sea of lush grass, Green Dawn uses boldly contrasting colors and draws upon the Japanese aesthetic concept of ma, the harmony between lines and space.

With Jaramillo’s first comprehensive career retrospective, there is a Jaramillo-ssance underway. Not unlike Taylor Swift in her “Eras” phase, Jaramillo travels through time, in a sense, by revisiting her full body of work. “I’m amazed that the works at this point in time exist within their own reality and are a testament to the time of their creation,” she says.

The Kemper’s Director of Curatorial Affairs, Erin Dziedzic, saw a New York show featuring Jaramillo’s new paintings in 2018 and was immediately taken with her artistry. “The level of depth and the attention to color and the way that space relates to it just became something else.” Even as Dziedzic noticed Jaramillo’s work resurface in the art world, a mystery still surrounded the artist. “[There were] gorgeous examples of her works in the shows and two sentences about her in the books…she’s so well represented in these shows, with really big paintings, but there’s nothing written about her.” Her curiosity and research revealed that Jaramillo had a longtime relationship with Kansas City that began in 1975 when the Douglas Drake Gallery first represented her. Dziedzic’s research led to a friendship with Jaramillo and, ultimately, to Principle of Equivalence.

The show also includes recent Jaramillo works like Site No.3: 51.1789° N, 1.8262° W (2018), whose name comes from Stonehenge’s geographical coordinates. The true purpose of Stonehenge is unknown—it could be astrological, spiritual, or even extraterrestrial—and all these theories are very on-brand for Jaramillo’s interests. Site No.3’s black and white color palette harkens back to Jaramillo’s first painting series, The Black Paintings, which focus on the Earth’s more fractured landscapes and muted color tones. In fact, there’s even a painting from The Black Paintings series titled Stonehenge (1964). Since Jaramillo visited Charles and Ray Eames’ studio for lectures in design when she attended the distinguished Manual Arts

High School—whose alumni also include Jackson Pollock and Philip Guston—Site’s overlapping white lines on a black surface, resembling an overhead view of a blacktop basketball court, might be considered a nod to Eames’ art film, Blacktop, which features 11 minutes of soap and water swirling around a black-topped schoolyard that Jaramillo says made an impact on her.

Art is not always accessible. Often, museums like the Kemper are free, and the internet has done a lot to make art of all kinds more accessible, but abstract art still faces a bit of a hang-up. We likely all know about the prank where someone plants amateur art in a modern museum as a gag, or have heard someone say incredulously (and mistakenly), “I can make that!” when looking at an abstract work. When abstract art is not collectively appreciated, that reaction is understandable. We do not know how to digest “weird” art that doesn’t seem to mimic reality, but the best abstract art is not derivative. Unlike art produced by AI, a human created it with skill, purpose, and attention.

To glance at abstract art and immediately dismiss the process that produced it misses the point entirely. You have to engage with it since it relies on a dialogue between the individual and the work. Fortunately, there are no wrong answers! The disarming beauty of it is that, whatever you experience, it is valid. We live in a visually rich world and see more images each day (advertisements, more specifically) than ever before, but just because we may have a greater volume to our visual literacy does not mean that we see better or can view our visuals through a critical lens. After all, ads tell you how to feel, while art asks you how you might.

Jaramillo maintains that she and her late husband, abstract painter Daniel LaRue Johnson, decided early on to always maintain their freedom as artists. That vow must not have always been easy, but they stuck with it. Jaramillo has excellent advice for anyone wanting to make it as an artist (or follow any dream, really): “Be true to yourself. You must be the hero of your own story and be willing to pay the price.” It has certainly paid off for Jaramillo.

Virginia Jaramillo: Principle of Equivalence can be seen from June 2 through August 27 at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Missouri.

OLIVIA DAILEY has a BA in Journalism from the University of Oklahoma. She works as a media production coordinator in Norman and is a frequent contributor to Art Focus