Jay Isaac: Pitch Assembling
Multiple lines of artistic research converge in Pitch Assembling, a new series of paintings by New Brunswick-based Jay Isaac (b. 1975), an artist of mixed Canadian and Lebanese descent. Abstract representations of roadways and pathways testify to the artist鈥檚 itinerant observation of his rural surroundings, but also betoken a multimodal journey of self-exploration.
Isaac鈥檚 use of therapeutic frameworks is linked to his ongoing personal archaeology of aesthetic sources. Like the earlier Log Pile Variations, Pitch Assembling draws formal parallels with the work of Lebanese artists including Etel Adnan, Huguette Caland, Saloua Raouda Choucair, and Saliba Douaihy. The vibrant palette and flat paint application of Isaac鈥檚 recent canvases nod toward the oblique landscape referent in Lebanese abstraction.
At the same time, Pitch Assembling exhibits a self-consciousness about its status as a discrete series that functions as a commercial proposition in a market context. In other words, the series knowingly 鈥減itches鈥� itself to viewers. As such, it extends Isaac鈥檚 long-time experimentation with both distinct bodies of work and projects that operate as art-and-business amalgams. Neither overtly commercial nor subversive in intent, Isaac鈥檚 interface with the economics of art is, rather, part and parcel of a more expansive exploration of how art functions in real-world domains. Eschewing formalist criteria of 鈥渜uality,鈥� Isaac has stated that he is 鈥渘ot interested in good or bad painting, but rather in how painting operates in context.鈥�
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Multiple lines of artistic research converge in Pitch Assembling, a new series of paintings by New Brunswick-based Jay Isaac (b. 1975), an artist of mixed Canadian and Lebanese descent. Abstract representations of roadways and pathways testify to the artist鈥檚 itinerant observation of his rural surroundings, but also betoken a multimodal journey of self-exploration.
Isaac鈥檚 use of therapeutic frameworks is linked to his ongoing personal archaeology of aesthetic sources. Like the earlier Log Pile Variations, Pitch Assembling draws formal parallels with the work of Lebanese artists including Etel Adnan, Huguette Caland, Saloua Raouda Choucair, and Saliba Douaihy. The vibrant palette and flat paint application of Isaac鈥檚 recent canvases nod toward the oblique landscape referent in Lebanese abstraction.
At the same time, Pitch Assembling exhibits a self-consciousness about its status as a discrete series that functions as a commercial proposition in a market context. In other words, the series knowingly 鈥減itches鈥� itself to viewers. As such, it extends Isaac鈥檚 long-time experimentation with both distinct bodies of work and projects that operate as art-and-business amalgams. Neither overtly commercial nor subversive in intent, Isaac鈥檚 interface with the economics of art is, rather, part and parcel of a more expansive exploration of how art functions in real-world domains. Eschewing formalist criteria of 鈥渜uality,鈥� Isaac has stated that he is 鈥渘ot interested in good or bad painting, but rather in how painting operates in context.鈥�
Artists on show
