Jesse Aran Greenberg
Counterpart
November 9–December 22, 2024
Opening reception Saturday, November 9, 2024, 3–5 PM
The colorful works in Jesse Aran Greenberg’s exhibition Counterpart conjure a subliminal spatial awareness, whether maneuvering around sculptures or observing the dense environments depicted in oil pastels. Throughout the exhibition, Greenberg explores our relationship to place: what is public and what is private, what occurs in our psyches when encountering a familiar shape in an unfamiliar place, and how person and place can shape one another.
Press for Counterpart
Jesse Aran Greenberg, Climax 4, 2024, oil pastel on board in frame, 24 x 18 x 0.125 inches
Jesse Aran Greenberg
“I aim to make sociable work, believing that the viewer's perception supersedes my intention. My sculptural works follow intuitively familiar formal principles of body-responsive design akin to municipal architecture and products. keeping not only the viewer's eye in mind, but also setting cues for their hand, body, and consciousness. These assemblages of found plastic objects appear as kiosk interfaces, surveillance sentinels, helper bots, and components for machines. In my oil pastels, there is a sense of musicality and growth. As if marks are conversations between characters, steps through instructions, or grand climaxes. I want my work to feel activated by the viewer as a component, alive and adapting.”
Jesse Aran Greenberg, Climax 5, 2024, oil pastel on wood board in frame, 24 x 18 x 0.125 inches
Jesse Aran Greenberg (b. 1982, New Jersey) is an artist and curator. Greenberg’s hyper-colorful and texturally rich oil pastels employ whimsy, violence, and musicality while sculptures made from scavenged discarded items form human and hand-scaled social machines. Greenberg has been included in solo and group exhibitions at Derek Eller (New York, NY), LOYAL (Stockholm, SE), Gavin Brown’s Enterprise (New York, NY), Marinaro’s (New York, NY), Jack Barret (New York, NY), Jack Hanley (New York, NY), O’Flaherty’s (New York, NY), Josh Lily (London, UK), White Flags (St. Louis, MO), Queens Museum (Queens, NY), and Socrates (Queens, NY). Greenberg is also the director of programming at Foreland in Catskill, NY, and a roving curator under his acronym JAG Projects.
Installation photography by Spencer House Studio