Pamela Jorden: Window Prism Eyes

"While spending most of my time either at home or in my studio, I’ve been thinking about looking, both inwardly and outwardly, and how windows frame my view." – Pamela Jorden

"All of these optical experiences, layers of focus, fragmentation, seeing, not seeing, broad scale, minute detail; this is what I’m thinking about lately."

"One rectangular painting is inspired by the chance composition and unexpected beauty of a graffiti covered glass pane in my studio windows."

"The windowpane’s layered and translucent color is transformed by light and time of day. I try to capture the transience of color and the oscillation between transparency and opacity with my work."

"For me, these paintings are experiments and improvisations with viscous pours of color. There are scale shifts in the paintings. Graphic fields dissolve into granular pigment dispersions. The paint moves in all directions."

"The geometry of a prism separates light into a spectrum of color. This painting distorts and fractures light logic, rearranging and reimagining color relationships."

"The edge of the paintings at times contains the pours, and at other times it flows over or around the frame. Some paintings have concentric rings like diffractions in light or water waves or like the aperture of the iris and dilations of the eye."

Philip Martin Gallery is proud to present, "Window Prism Eyes," its first exhibition at the gallery of paintings by Los Angeles-based artist Pamela Jorden. Pamela Jorden's paintings are presented on shaped stretchers, around which the linen of her works is stretched, and upon which Jorden applies the paint in directed, pushed and dragged flows.

Since March, Pamela Jorden writes, "While spending most of my time either at home or in my studio, I’ve been thinking about looking, both inwardly and outwardly, and how windows frame my view." Jorden's home is in the Echo Park section of Los Angeles and looks out over the busy urban park surrounding Echo Park Lake. Her studio is downtown - just north of the 10 Freeway, just south of the sprawling low-rise warehouses of LA's garment district. Of the works in the show, Jorden writes, "One rectangular painting is inspired by the chance composition and unexpected beauty of a graffiti covered glass pane in my studio windows. The windowpane’s layered and translucent color is transformed by light and time of day. I try to capture the transience of color and the oscillation between transparency and opacity with my work."

In recent years, Jorden has become intensely interested in shape, and the way in which it defines the edge of the paintings. Jorden has made circular and shaped works formed by regular or irregular polygons, sometimes with bowed or curved lines that meet at angular corners. At the same time, Jorden pursues the way in which shape appears inside the painting: sometimes formed by actual holes built into the structure of the canvas; usually formed by the way in which Jorden directs her paint as she pours it. In describing her new works, Jorden notes that the group of circular paintings in her Philip Martin Gallery exhibition, "range in diameter from 18 to 60 inches. For me, these paintings are experiments and improvisations with viscous pours of color. There are scale shifts in the paintings. Graphic fields dissolve into granular pigment dispersions. The paint moves in all directions. The edge of the paintings at times contains the pours, and at other times it flows over or around the frame. Some paintings have concentric rings like diffractions in light or water waves or like the aperture of the iris and dilations of the eye."

The effect of Jorden's work is to create a shifting, scintillating space that in some sense adds to the High Modernist notion of "opticality" first described by art critic Clement Greenberg in the 1950s. Jorden notes that, in one recent work, "A regular polygonal shape, contains prismatic pours of paint. There is not a clear logic to this painting, although the symmetry of the shape might suggest one. The geometry of a prism separates light into a spectrum of color. This painting distorts and fractures light logic, rearranging and reimagining color relationships. Gravity and magnetism come into play. All of these optical experiences, layers of focus, fragmentation, seeing, not seeing, broad scale, minute detail; this is what I’m thinking about lately."

Pamela Jorden (b. 1969, Knoxville, TN) received a BFA from the University of Tennessee in 1992 and an MFA from California Institute of the Arts in 1996. Her work will be the subject of a solo exhibition at Philip Martin Gallery (Los Angeles, CA) in December 2020. Jorden's work was recently featured in "Katy Cowan and Pamela Jorden: The Day in the Night" at Philip Martin Gallery (Los Angeles, CA). Jorden has had recent solo and group exhibitions at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery (New York, NY); Romer Young Gallery (San Francisco, CA); Brennan & Griffin (New York, NY); Seterah Gallery (Düsseldorf, Germany); Pizzuti Collection (Columbus, OH); Mason Gross Art Gallery at Rutgers University (New Brunswick, NJ). Jorden's work has been written about numerous publications such as Artforum, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and Art in America. Jorden lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.

In accordance with Los Angeles County Covid-19 protocol, Philip Martin Gallery is currently open by appointment only. To make an appointment, or to get additional images, or information please email info@philipmartingallery.com, or call 213-422-9286. Philip Martin Gallery is located at 2712 S. La Cienega Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90034 in the Culver City area of Los Angeles between Venice and Washington Blvds., just south of the 10 Freeway.