Jessica Dickinson is a meditative painter couched in the intriguing process of making elegant surfaces. In fact, for Dickinson, process is not just about the ups and downs of imagination, the questions and answers of art-making, or the creation of gorgeous art, but rather an intrinsic and necessary aspect of the final statement. As such, in the middle of the floor at James Fuentes Gallery, where her exhibit of large paintings hangs until June 15, are two stacks of equally large paper “remainders,” or graphite rubbings of the paintings’ surfaces, made at intervals during a painting’s development. The large rubbings document the progression of 12-20 stages, in which a kind of semi-transparent plaster spackle is layered and re-layered, chiseled, scraped and painted. Called “remainders,” and considered a part of the final piece, these prints collectively are about the collection of Time, about the individual moments of Time marked throughout the months’ long adventure of making each painting. However, though conceptually interesting, the actual experience of viewing the art is much more engaging than the rubbings or process of getting there. The translucent surfaces are seductive for their sheer beauty, but more importantly, each color mark, each incision, each light reflection is deeply felt, and the slow accumulation of plaster and color creates its own visual Time, sensed in the quiet viewing of each work. Marks seem to hover between layers, making space and time become one, as the spatial depth gradually shifts, moving from Before to before-Before, to Now, to a mysterious Future and after-Future of time, memory and existence.

JAMES FUENTES LLC