Ariella Budick reports that Jacquette bases her virtuosically executed paintings on photographs from glossy shelter magazines. “Chandeliers glitter, massive gilt mirrors festoon palatial bathrooms and crystal decanters cast dappled reflections across silver trays. With their voluptuous sheen and creamy glow, the canvases reproduce that sense of money. ‘I’m creating a collection of luxurious homes for myself, but the project is intentionally a complete failure because I can’t go into them or possess them,’ she explains. ‘I admit that I’m completely sucked in by the imagery of beautiful homes that permeate our culture right now.’ Jacquette and her husband inhabit a tiny tenement apartment on the Lower East Side, but living small hasn’t prevented her from dreaming large. The paintings deal with her ambivalence about manufactured desire. Like the 17th century genre painters who gave themselves over to the visual study of shiny objects in silver, glass and brass, she sees hints of divinity and mortality in the passion to acquire and consume.” Read more.
“Julia Jacquette: Domestic Desire,” University Center Gallery, Adelphi University, Garden City, NY. Through April 18.
