Jack Mernin: Live Time

JO-HS NY is thrilled to present a solo exhibition of paintings and works on paper by NY-based artist Jack Mernin. A short text by the artist accompanies the exhibition.

Live Time will be on view from March 21 until April 20th by appointment only. Schedule your appointment by emailing elisabeth@jo-hs.com

I began the work in this show years ago, just over a decade, when I began a consistent practice drawing from life, a practice adjacent to the large studio paintings, that often fuels and informs them.

I am drawn to painterly histories with a seen subject, with a synchronicity of histories, which emphasizes something actual, confronted, captured, with a photographer or diarist’s impulse to document.

Over the years there have been shifts to the works on paper.  Scale, material, subjects, themes vary, yet they have the same habitual consistency and motivation.

I want there to be a lived force embedded in the works, a devotion, a slow rigor that is hard fought, patient, and essential.

There is joy in making these things, there is joy in my surroundings, through the people I love and cherish, through the cohorts that are formed and driven by odd creative compulsions.

There is sadness as well, as they remain detached, solipsistic, and isolated as gestures.

There is the potential to correct, next time, possibly.  We’ll see.

- Jack Mernin, 2024