Mirages

Published in conjunction with Mirages—the first solo show in Italy by American artist Jenna Gribbon, who has conceived it specifically for the Collezione Maramotti's Pattern Room—this book showcases a wealth of images and essays by art historian and curator Flavia Frigeri and by writer Alexandra Kleeman.
Jenna Gribbon often depicts the people closest to her: her friends, her son, her partner, her fellow artists. Her paintings capture the intricacies and dynamics within these relationships while addressing the implications surrounding seeing and being seen. The central subject of the works in the exhibition is the artist's partner, musician Mackenzie Scott (aka TORRES). Gribbon's protagonist is portrayed in vivid colours and fluid, sensual brushstrokes that make the surroundings almost merge with her body—a body that is reflected, moulded, perused, made larger than life—experimenting with scale and compositions that are entirely new for the artist.
While in the larger paintings the visual energy of these images radiates from a distance—their forms becoming almost abstract as one approaches the surface of the canvas—the smaller works demand proximity, a personal movement towards and into the work in order to grasp its details and narrative. As unique portrayals of a female universe where beauty and pleasure are political tools for demolishing patriarchal and heterosexual structures, her works engage viewers as active participants in complex relationships of the gaze.