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Jaye Schlesinger

JANUARY 11 – FEBRUARY 9, 2019

Come see the work of Ann Arbor artist Jaye Schlesinger on display on the first floor of the Ann Arbor Art Center, beginning January 11, 2019. Schlesinger draws inspiration from everyday scenery of Ann Arbor life which she reimagines into paintings that ride the line between painterly and digital.

Artist Statement: “The urge to explore abstraction, after so many years as a realist painter, began as a slight inkling of desire to feel more freedom in my art practice. I began by attempting to develop a new visual vocabulary based on digitally manipulated photo-based imagery. As I played with the many tools available in Adobe Photoshop, I was wowed by the non-intuitive shapes and marks that appeared. I enjoyed the process of creating compositions on the computer and reveled in the myriad of unusual quirky effects that somewhat effortlessly appeared, but I was not interested in abandoning paint. Translating the imagery in gouache on paper enabled me to think about the subtleties of surface, shape, and color while replicating the kinds of marks that were not part of my intuitive range of gestures. My current series of gouache paintings of Ann Arbor playgrounds and houses is about shape, color, rhythm, and balance. These subjects have strong geometric or angular elements combined with a small amount of more organic shapes. They are highly abstracted, yet still recognizable. My intent is to celebrate, through vibrant colors and quirky marks, the joy of play, the nostalgia for childhood, and the idea of home. My “Some City” series evolved from my years of photographing rooftops and houses and my general interest in architecture. The “scenes” are not intended to be depictions of specific locales, but rather to reflect a more generic sense of structure and the rhythm that arises in an urban environment. In these paintings, I have tried to simplify greatly, leaving in only enough information to suggest a sense of space. ”

Artist’s website: http://www.jayeschlesinger.com/