Contributed by John Goodrich / Is it possible for a painter to celebrate both the traditions of great painting and her own spontaneously observed surroundings? The two seem incompatible to those who believe honest artists employ the methods of their time. But to those who consider familiarity with the masters necessary to faithfully render the present in paint, it is impossible not to embrace both things simultaneously. Bonnard’s work makes the point. His luminous interiors move not simply through evocative textures and bright colors – qualities he honed as a poster designer – but through his hand’s disciplined animation. No wonder painter and writer Sargy Mann described him as the “modern master closest to the old masters in the complexity, richness and subtlety of his paintings.” Elisa Jensen is a kindred spirit, sharing his keenness for color. In her latest paintings at Astor Weeks – all oil on wood– she explores Bonnardian motifs such as doorway geometry, window views, and shadows, turning interiors into paeans to the domestic.
oil on wood panel, 30 x 22 inches
Through the third-floor window in Riverview Winter, Jensen measures the drop to the ground with a luminous pool of ultramarine bracketed by the window frame’s heated reds. Below, the painting’s darkest note – a blotch of deep black-greens – pins the field below our point of view. The scene continues to unfold: bands of muffled pink and raw blue-gray spell out the space beyond the snowy field. Above them, the green bar of a forest swells in varied hues, its upper contour tightening between red frames. The muted pink path converses with a much brighter slash of orange-pinks announcing a distant gap between clouds. Slender tree trunks rise, stitching together land, forest, and sky. All this could seem fanciful, but Jensen’s color drives the circulation of forms, leaving enigmas that resolve, under pressure, as distinct objects.
14 x 11 inches
At first blush, Riverview Interior, Early Spring suggests impromptu origins. A crazily angling window frame evokes the vantage point of someone who has just awakened rising from bed. Near the center, an indoor plant’s dark fronds reach across a vacant window. Two small objects – one apparently a fallen frond, the other a violet blossom – curl in response. The troika feels both whimsical and vital: across the divide of glass, they stabilize the scene against the jangle of diagonal lights and darks.
Candle on Ellen’s Table, the largest painting on view, captures the remarkable effect of a candle’s tiny flame anchoring the looming blue sky. Its dimensions are expansive but so is the artist’s capacity to energize the visual experience. Various reds swell to the ceiling, measuring out window frames and cavernous walls. An armchair to the left – voluminous though lightly drawn – sets off the central tabletop, which the low vantage has reduced to a horizontal splinter. Distantly mirroring the abrupt vertical of the candle is the small rectangle of a gleaning window in a shadowy façade. Not every painting in the exhibition feels as vitalized as this one. It’s the larger ones that most intensely explore dramas of scale and condensations of details within spacious walls or sky. But Jensen’s colors and forms are never merely decorative effects or cerebral symbols. They’re pictorial forces that continuously and rewardingly present immediate experience through painting’s – and Jensen’s – unique powers.
“Elisa Jensen: Invitation,” Astor Weeks, 209 Canal Street, Third Floor, New York, NY. Through April 11, 2026.
About the author: Formerly a contributing writer for the New York Sun and Review magazine, John Goodrich paints, teaches, and writes about art in the New York City area. He teaches at Haverford College.
