As the goddess Demeter and her daughter reunite, color starts populating the landscape and before we know it, it’s March again. Spring is approaching especially slowly this year, as it gradually appears, it feels like we greet it with comprehensible caution, but growing positivity. It is impossible to forget the long winter behind us, but here we are, reemerging and prepared for what is next.
This is the sentiment present in Angela West’s Persephone, now on view at Jackson Fine Art which features large-scale hybrid paintings and photographs. Revisiting and reworking her archives, West has looked back in order to move forward; and continues to investigate photography’s potential outside of the photographic canon. Photography—especially in a traditional view—is a representation of the atmosphere between the ground glass and the subject. The compelling element in these pieces is the reimagination of this photographic commandment. The invisible space in between the blurred canvas and the swift brush marks becomes as important, creating a double illusion that captures the viewer into West’s enchanted territory.
