Essay by Jennifer Mushkin
Amsterdam Whitney Gallery Exhibition
New York City
11.05.2009
Gustave Moreau once said, '"I have never looked for dream in reality or reality in dream. I have allowed my imagination free play, and I have not been lead astray by it." Influenced by his study in ancient spiritual practices, contemporary painter Jason Lincoln Jeffers creates breathtaking works of art which illuminate the esoteric, subtly infusing a variety of elements carrying a common thread between ancient mysticism and modern science. Mr. Jeffers' moving depictions of symbolic and metaphysical elements contain a thrilling imaginative force fused with masterful elocution that bewitches the senses.
The illustration of large almond shaped eyes is a recurrence in Mr. Jeffers' artwork, piercing from the artwork to greet the viewer. These ocular details are reminiscent of the haunting oversized "windows to the soul" seen in Byzantine Art.
Although Mr. Jeffers' paints figurative elements--as seen with his ravishing profiles of goddess-like figures--his subject matter is primarily symbolic and at times leaning toward abstraction. Mr. Jeffers often paints large portions of his mysterious subject matter in metallic gold and surrounds his figures with symbols, such as hieroglyphics and jeweled eyed ornamental snake figures, bringing to mind the wall paintings of the ancient Egyptian pyramids.
Thin white chalky lines are painted lightly over the subject matter, which gives his artwork the appearance of having been clandestine in an ancient ruin for millennia, where minerals naturally calcify atop all surfaces. The underlying artwork is carefully executed in concise black line and a color palette which includes Venetian and terra cotta reds, snowy white and the glistening black of obsidian rock.
Mr. Jeffers' alluring artwork elevates the viewer to a metaphysical plane where what one gazes upon bestows the ability to experience a spiritual and emotional metamorphosis.
goddess athena
2009 oil on canvas
Art Critique.
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