MORE THAN A FEELING
Abstraction & Connection in an Insensible World

PAINTNGS by JACQUELINE EVANS

On view January 17–March 16, 2025

Opening January 17, 2025 from 5-7 p.m. at the Manchester Community Library, located at 138 Cemetery Ave. in Manchester Center, VT

Influenced by Helen Frankenthaler’s virtuosic painting and finely-detailed improvisational graphic lines, thin paint, and impasto, Jacqueline Evans found equal inspiration in the abstract expressionist paintings of Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Lee Krasner, and Joan Mitchell. Beginning with graphite to define shapes, Evans uses oil and cold wax to anchor imagery. Organic shapes, bold color, and lost-and-found preliminary markings peer through variations in tonality, opacity, and transparent patterns and surfaces. The elements of art-making are the primary language for making connections with her viewers.

Visual linguistics – whatever tools or dialectical directions they take – are formed by universal human promptings and a desire to make sense of experience and emotions in a sometimes incomprehensible world. Experimentation with visual materials is no different from playing with syntactical or rhythmic variations to create a poem or adding footnotes to a thesis on human emotions and commotions in support of nuanced ideas.

Abstract art can take on other-worldly characteristics and while it is true that many painters see abstract expression as spiritual or transcendent; Jacqueline Evans views the physical world as a place of belongings left behind. In an era given to redefining belonging and cultural contexts in broader, inclusive terms, abstraction in any format is a reliable avenue of exchange and fluency across the quotidian. The eye does not require symbols or portrayals to feel drawn in and connected. Portal to the mind, the eye is capable of unfathomable understanding.

Ruth Greene-McNally, Curator

"Politico" Graphite, Oil on Bristol

“Politico” grew out of complicated feelings resulting from the outcome of the 2024 Presidential Election. I needed to find a way to express the power of strong political views in opposition to the reality we are facing with the coming administration. The imagery emerged from feelings of sadness, disbelief, and anger. More than feelings, the complexities, process, and plastic elements of making art speak for me in ways that realism can not express. As the language of mid-century modernist painters, I wanted to explore what the political climate may have been like for them when they faced marginalization, the war in Europe, and the spirit of individualism vs. solidarity that pervaded a significant period in American art and history. Although I had no specific shapes, form, or color in mind when I began, I knew I would lean toward minimalist imagery that were as strong as my concerns and hopes. I chose expressive color and graphite as the means to follow complex feelings. The process was cathartic and I hope the imagery speaks to the viewer.