PE Pinkman: Neither Here and There, The Alcove Gallery at Drawing Rooms, 3/1/24 – 4/13/24

Response to “Neither Here and There,” an exhibition by PE Pinkman
By Mona Brody
April 4, 2024

A single self-portrait can offer a provocative glance into an artist’s private life. But when one has an opportunity to view and explore 100 portraits from 100 days, a visual cacophony occurs.  Artist PE Pinkman offers the viewer that opportunity in his series, “100 Days of a Pandemic” and “Not Who You See(m)” as part of the broader exhibition on view, “Neither Here and There” displayed in The Alcove Gallery at Drawing Rooms, 926 Newark Avenue, Jersey City, NJ, curated by Anne Trauben.

Views from “100 Days of a Pandemic” by PE Pinkman
The Alcove Gallery at The Drawing Rooms

Pinkman’s series, “100 Days of a Pandemic,” allowed me to be a voyeur of sorts, as I delved into the inner life of a man’s psyche, emotional state, and various identities. This diaristic practice began January 1, 2021, nine months after the Covid Pandemic started and concluded April 11, 2021. PE Pinkman was completely into the throes of a global pandemic, unbridled disinformation, Black Lives Matter protests, an election unlike any in history, unprecedented vaccine development, and general mistrust. 

Day 4, I Can’t Breathe, 14 x 11 in, mixed media on paper, 2021

Day 24, Fake News, 14 x 11 in, mixed media on paper, 2021

Day 1, Do You Feel the Same Way I Do, 14 x 11 in,
mixed media on paper, 2021

It was clear to me that his commitment to this daily practice of drawing one drawing a day for 100 days, while isolated in a small apartment, was a necessary process of reflection and self-healing. This practice allowed him to find the motivation and ultimately the content for this self-directed series. Begun in a time of introspection, the series morphed into an important and profound work of art. 

Francis Bacon’s self-portrait series from 1975, "I've Had Else to Paint but Myself", cries out to me in the same manner as Pinkman’s series. Both artists face solitude and fear in a delicate balance of sanity, fantasy, and response to a challenging world.

Day 48, You Mean I can Be Brave and Afraid, 14 x 11 in,
mixed media on paper, 2021

I've Had Nobody Else to Paint but Myself by Francis Bacon
14 x 12 inches, oil on canvas

Pinkman’s other series of self-portraits from birth to a futuristic view as him as an older man, "Not Who You See(m)" takes us through the stages of his life, experiences, and challenges. Materials and touch allow the memory of youth and the reality of age and wisdom to emerge. 

                                     #22, 14 x 11 in, graphite on paper                                      

                     

#60, 14 x 11 in, graphite on paper

While responding to PE Pinkman’s drawings from this series, I had the desire to revisit Rembrandt’s archive of self-portraits. Rembrandt’s self-portraits have been an important example of documenting and recording self-exploration for artists over the centuries, and they continue to this day.  I am fascinated by the psychological intensity of Rembrandt’s late self-portraits and its relationship to Pinkman’s drawing of how he sees himself now.

Self-portrait looking in a mirror, Rembrandt van Rijn, Age 63,
possibly black conte on laid paper, 1669 

#67, 14 x 11 in, graphite on paper

The last four years have changed us. It’s changed how we communicate and interact with one another, and it’s changed who we are as individuals. PE Pinkman has thoughtfully and skillfully helped us heal through a repetition of his own drawn image.  By experiencing Pinkman’s exhibition, the viewer can reflect deeply into oneself by employing humor, exploring the mysterious, the bizarre, and the uncomfortable parts of the human spirit. This self-understanding gives us permission and strength to manage the chaotic and harmful forces that lie from within and the world around us. 

"Neither Here and There" will continue on view at Drawing Rooms Alcove Gallery until April 13, 2024.

Mona Brody is an artist whose studio is at Manufacturers Village in East Orange, New Jersey. Learn more about Mona here.

Mona Brody: Portals, Apparitions and Other Voices, solo show at Watchung Arts Center, 9/16/23 - 10/22/23

by Bruce Halpin

Mona Brody’s show “Portals, Apparitions and Other Voices" at the Watchung Arts Center presents an effulgent excursion into the Sublime. I mean this particularly in a specific formal sense as well as the more commonly understood connotation: beautiful to the point of ineffability.The beauty of the paintings is what strikes the viewer immediately and emphatically. The other sense of sublime requires some explanation. 

In her seminal text on American painting of the Nineteenth Century: “Nature and Culture", Barbara Novack identifies two distinct aspects of the sublime, what she refers to as The Grand Opera and the Still Small Voice applied variously to artists such as Fredric Edwin Church and Fitz H Lane; Church obviously representing the grand opera and Lane, the still small voice. These two aspects of the sublime play back and forth throughout the 19th and 20th centuries and now into the 21st. Examples of the two might include Pollack, Rothko, on the one hand, and say, Agnes Martin or Forrest Bess on the other. Of particular significance is Bill Jensen whose early work, much influenced by Ryder, served as a jumping off point to his current painterly explorations. Mona Brody’s work is very much of the grand opera scheme, although the influence of nature in her paintings temper that. Edmund Burke, the 18th century revivalist of the sublime emphasized “Astonishment" and the transformative potential of the experience as being central to the sublime. Ms Brody’s paintings express that sentiment to the extreme. Her use of unconventional materials (shellac and raw pigments) implies a sensibility searching for extreme expression, as if mere paint and canvas could not alone supply the super charged effects she is seeking. The application of those materials also suggests a kind of “take it to the limit" feeling of these paintings. As Burke also suggested, beauty is not the proper vehicle for extreme and mysterious experience, a sense of transcendence is needed for the sublime to operate. 

Viewers seeking a profound experience, touching on mystery and imagination, owe it to themselves to see this show. 

Mona Brody: Portals, Apparitions and Other Voices, curated by Paul Pinkman, at Watchung Arts Center, 18 Sterling Road, Watchung, NJ, runs through October 22, 2023.

Bruce Halpin is an artist living in Jersey City. Read Bruce's bio here and view his artwork here.