Jennifer Bartlett: Day into Night: Pastels

From July 28 through August 29, The Drawing Room in East Hampton is pleased to present "Jennifer Bartlett: Day into Night", an exhibition of vibrant pastels drawn on site in her gardens in Amagansett and Brooklyn, and while traveling to the islands of Nevis, St. Barthélemy and Bermuda. These lush drawings of dramatic landscape spaces where land meets sea and sky reflect Bartlett’s longstanding engagement with the subject of place, a central theme in her work since the completion in 1976 of Rhapsody, her epic painting that integrates the motifs of house, tree, mountain and ocean with passages of pure geometric abstraction. Ever fascinated with the rigor of a square composition, Bartlett gives structure to the colorful tensions she discovers in natural surroundings of far reaching tropical and cultivated oases.

Selected from pastels that span over fifteen years, this exhibition brings together landscapes created at all hours of day and night. In one room, Bartlett’s island subjects reflect close observation paired with her exploration of the mysterious possibilities of her powdery medium. Whether inspired by a sun-drenched Bermuda seascape, a moonlit harbor view of St. Barth’s or a salmon sunset over Nevis, each daylight, dusk and nocturnal view evokes the distinct mood of a palpable atmospheric and spatial experience. Through drawing techniques that range from broad, languid gestures, to frenzied swirls of color, to more intricate staccato marks that define sailing skiffs, spiny evergreens and broad palm fronds, Bartlett affirms a place in the history of the pastel medium alongside the midnight mindscapes of Odilon Redon and Van Gogh’s intense drawings of the French landscape.

See below for full press release and selected works.