Those who came to visit Plus gallery while in our temporary space next to the MCA might have noticed the two fold out-sketchbooks we had on view with Denver light-rail maps on the cover. The sketches inside detail journeys that Plus Gallery artist Jean Arnold had taken while visiting our city using the public transportation system, complete with illuminating notations and a style characteristic of someone highly invested in their task. These gems were the precursor to Jean's latest exhibition "ONRUSH" now on view at Plus Gallery, featuring large-scale interpretations of select travel sequences in Denver and other locations throughout the United States.
Arnold's second solo exhibition with Plus Gallery, “Onrush” references the unique sense of motion within Arnold’s urban abstractions as well as the quickly changing social mores currently impacting our society. Arnold’s travels, whether by bus or train, provide the perfect context to gather visual information in a state of flux, or “urban clutter” as she refers to it. Arnold re-interprets her journeys on canvas, distilling specific portions of her sketchbooks into segments with cultural and compositional value. Her gestural techniques promote a broad, dynamic color range, converting her notes into forms that balance between the recognizable and the purely abstract.
The sense of motion is definitely pervasive in Arnold’s works, but their grounding in issues of today raise them to another level entirely. Concerned with the very environment that they are culled from, each mark on the canvas is rooted in ideas of how the advancement of society is altering conditions at its own ever-increasing pace. According to Arnold “On my urban bus excursions, I came to realize the primacy of energy as the underpinning of our civilization. We take for granted our urban sprawl, designed around cheap oil, without considering the challenge we will have in crossing those expanses after the cheap oil runs out. Our entire way of life is structured by cheap energy – our city layouts, transportation, global trade and food production. I seek to capture the petroleum-powered speed experience, as it essentially defines our lives at this time.”
“Onrush” presents several major works reflecting the Denver environs as well as other geographical locations of note such as San Francisco, CA, Little Rock, AK and various islands of Hawaii, all places that have deep meaning to the artist. The exhibition promotes a solid view of how abstraction can be used in conjunction with thoughtful social constructs to deliver a visual experience like no other.
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