Swimmer and Reflection (Primary Title)
Neil Jenney, American, born 1945 (Artist)
“I am not trying to duplicate something that I see in nature because you must always compromise—it is always going to be paint, you cannot outpaint the paint.” —Neil Jenney
As a young painter in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Jenney shared with Pop artists an interest in concrete, recognizable subject matter. In works from this period, he explored how simple, familiar images like a swimmer and the swimmer’s reflection exist in relation to each other.
This painting’s gestural quality, however, with its loose brushstrokes, drips, and scratched, makes it very different from the sleek styles of Pop Art. In giving equal importance to realistic subject matter and to expressive effects, Jenney’s work challenges Pop’s detached irony.
Jenney’s characteristic inclusion of the title, here in bold letters on the large black frame, emphasizes the subject while resisting explanation. This approach characterized a new generation of artists loosely grouped as New Image painters.
Bedford Gallery, Longwood College, Farmville, VA, January 17 - February 19, 1988
Faces/Figures, Anderson Gallery, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, November 19 - December 20, 1987
Exchanges III, Henry St. Settlement, New York, NY, June - July 1981
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