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The New Contemporary Art Magazine
In Jesse Mockrin's recent paintings, the artist quotes depictions of women and violence throughout the history of art, taking influence from Baroque work, Renaissance etchings, and other eras. In "Syrinx," currently running at Night Gallery, the artist crops these influences and places them side by side. (Mockrin was last featured on HiFructose.com here.) The gallery says that “she first category considers images of women under duress, while the second category reclaims the condemned figure of the witch as a feminist forebear.”
Los Angeles based artist Jesse Mockrin (featured here) will debut a new body of work at her upcoming show opening on Saturday at Night Gallery. “The Progress of Love” is her second solo show, following “Midnight Sun” in 2014 with a series of oil paintings that revisit the French Rococo era. Mockrin reimagines source material such as Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun’s “Portrait of Madame du Barry” to construct an ethereal world of transgression, luminescence and beauty. The fluid curvature of limbs and fingers, softness of facial features, and emphasis on portions of each scene by isolating them into standalone pieces themselves, are all characteristic of her work.
Jesse Mockrin takes the romance and impressiveness of Rococo painting, the 18th century style known for its scenes of love and amorous encounters, and reorganizes it into small pieces. The Los Angeles based artist's portraits have been described as "angelic Frankensteins", tightly cropped images of classical figures like privileged youth and secret lovers where only an ear, curvy fingers, or part of their attire appear in the frame.