Français
“Sea Legs” is the brand-new exhibition opening this Thursday at the Space Gallery in Saint Barth. It features a new series of abstract paintings by American artist Jane Lafarge Hamill, marking her second solo exhibition at the Gustavia gallery. The exhibition brings together works that explore the fleeting intensity of experience, the instability of perception, and the rare relief that comes from losing track of time, of oneself, and of narrative. Jane Lafarge Hamill’s compositions invite the viewer’s gaze to constantly adapt, oscillating between bursts of color, sweeping gestures, transparent layers, and moments of ambiguous depth.
The artist takes as her starting point a sentence from Virginia Woolf’s early diaries: “I belong to fleeting and futile moments of intense emotion. Yes, I belong to moments.” For Jane Lafarge Hamill, belonging to a moment means freeing oneself from the account of the day—from productivity, chronology, and the impulse to explain. “Her paintings seek to create precisely this space: a place where the gaze can wander without having to arrive anywhere,” notes Natalie Clifford, the gallery’s director. Each painting begins with meticulous choices regarding composition, palette, color mixing, and transparency. Large quantities of paint are prepared in advance and arranged in paint pans before she begins working on the canvas. However, once she gets started, the paintings are completed quickly. Using brushes up to ten inches (25 cm) wide, she employs movements of her entire body to create sweeping strokes that reflect the physical gesture that produced them. This speed allows the movement to remain visible in the finished work while leaving room for chance, intuition, and change.” The resulting paintings lie halfway between choreography and improvisation.
With “Sea Legs,” Jane Lafarge Hamill offers not an image to be deciphered, but an experience to be lived.
> An exhibition on view through November 19
at the Space Gallery St. Barth
Carré d’Or in Gustavia,
between Hermès and Cartier.
Opening reception with the artist in attendance, Thursday, November 5, from 6 to 8 p.m.
The gallery is open Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 4 to 7 p.m.
