Susan Inglett Gallery presents select works by Martha Jackson Jarvis, in tandem with What The Trees Have Seen II, her first solo exhibition at the gallery. The exhibition will be on view from 17 October – 30 November 2024.
In her recent exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art, What The Trees Have Seen, Jarvis bears witness to her great-great-great grandfather's experience as a free Black militia man during the American Revolutionary War. In her large-scale abstract paintings, Jarvis tracks his physical journey through various landscapes, both wild and domestic, embedding the work with deep-seated memories of time and place. Jarvis’ practice spans decades and media, ranging from large-scale sculpture and public art installations to works on paper. A signature of her practice is a walnut ink that is foraged and produced by Jarvis herself, charging the work with a raw, elemental materiality that is both singular and historically relevant. Along with this practical introduction of the terrestrial, the compositions take visual cues from nature, implementing forms reminiscent of tree roots and waterways as documentation of the networks that connect us to home and one another.
Cycles of generational exchange and storytelling are felt in Jarvis’ use of mandalas as motifs, the symbol holding space in the compositions as a regenerative emblem. The radial, circular pattern, evocative of life-giving, natural forms such as the sun or ovum, along with the colorfully abstract painted forms, is occasionally juxtaposed with black and white stripes, suggesting clear paths of travel that are disrupted and overtaken by the unpredictable patterns of nature and circumstance. Jarvis reaches back through her lineage, synthesizing her ancestors experience with her own, creating works that are universal, intergenerational, and charged with familial emotion. At the intersection of cultural tradition, feminine history, and ecological responsibility, Jarvis’ work harmonizes the perspectives of indigenous populations and their spiritual tether to the natural world. Martha Jackson Jarvis’ work extends across natural networks and cultural connections to underscore the importance of relationships: the ones we build within ourselves, our communities, and our environments.
MARTHA JACKSON JARVIS (b. 1952) explores form, structure, and scale through a multi-media practice. Growing up in Lynchburg, Virginia, and Philadelphia, now living and working in Washington, D.C., Jarvis’ multifarious practice challenges the viewer to find the extraordinary in our cultural and physical environments. Her works conjure themes of ritual and repetitive action and are made in reverence to the cycles of renewal, degradation, and transformation. The artist’s work functions as an abstracted, emotional response to research concerning her lineage and familial history. Receiving a BFA from Temple University, and an MFA from Antioch University, Jarvis’ work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in galleries and museums throughout the United States and abroad, including a recent solo show at the Baltimore Museum of Art, and prior exhibitions at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; the Studio Museum of Harlem, N.Y., Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts, N.Y.; Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, N.C.; Anacostia Museum in Washington, D.C. and the Tretyakov Gallery Moscow, U.S.S.R. Jarvis has received numerous awards, including a Creative Capital Grant, a Virginia Groot Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and the Lila Wallace Arts International Travel Grant. She received the James A Porter Colloquium Lifetime Achievement Award in 2023. Her work can be found in the collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Philadelphia African American Museum, among others.
29 October - 2 November 2024
Benefit Preview: 29 October 2024
Wednesday, October 30:
12:00 - 7:00 PM
Thursday, October 31:
12:00 - 7:00 PM
Friday, November 1:
12:00 - 7:00 PM
Saturday, November 2:
12:00 - 6:00 PM
