PROFILE // Carrying a Torch into the Wilds
By Jared Michael Lowe
EXCERPT //
Seeing art up close again in a museum comes with a perceptible rush.
It’s an intense feeling, a mixture of both excitement and fear at seeing the vividness of oil paint under hot bright lights, surrounded by other art lovers. While anxieties of the coronavirus still linger, vaccinations have begun, and it’s like venturing out into an alternative universe where facemasks are still mandated and people must stay six feet apart while viewing artwork. Such is our new way of life a year into our pandemic, braving a new frontier in a familiar terrain, the art museum now the wilds and all of us animals exploring.
I’m so overwhelmed by the sensory overload that I completely forget that I’ve asked the artist Jonathan Lyndon Chase a question while we tour the Barnes Foundation’s new exhibition, Soutine / de Kooning: Conversations in Paint. Chase is also known for their portraiture, which is in conversation with the two featured artists, and now we are in conversation as well.
For full text and images, consider reading RQ in print, on a Sunday afternoon, sun streaming through your window, coffee in hand, and nary a phone alert within sight or in earshot… just fine words, fine design, and the opportunity to make a stitch in time. // Subscribe or buy a single issue today. // Print is dead. Long live print. //