Dream window
A solo exhibition by Jeanne Hoffman
Presented by Salon Ninety One
JEANNE HOFFMAN. Crossing fields, 2021. Acrylic on Italian cotton. 1200 x 1000mm. Unframed
Dream window borrows its title from a 1992 documentary on Japanese gardens, referencing the conceptual and aesthetic devices of the ancient horticultural artform – that juxtapose outside with inside, order with wildness, the stasis of framing (the captured moment) with perpetual movement, growth, and change. These purposes run parallel to those of Hoffman’s practice, where her paintings are intended as places, spaces, or stages upon which various gestures and encounters take shape.
Jeanne Hoffman sees paintings as places where words engage with what cannot be verbalised. Conversations of another sort – even conflicts – arise as realities invade one another’s territory. But the result is a fertile space, creative through the multiple encounters. From one territory, moves the unmitigated, primordial, ineffable; from another, the mediated, rationalised, observed – drawn towards each other in this space of painting, processed by the artist through poetic responses to these fragmented recollections.
These conversations compound in the act of exhibiting: Individual pieces interact with each other; the artist and the viewer engage one another through the work. The paintings are, thus, intended as devices for contemplation – what Roland Barthes describes as a “stage” upon which thoughts roam freely and both artist and viewer are confronted and transformed by the gestures playing out.
JEANNE HOFFMAN. Fragment Garden, 2021. Acrylic on Italian cotton. 800 x 600mm. Unframed
Hoffmann elaborates:
The “architecture” of the space (the “stage”, or the painting) frames a symbolic constellation that is a space of continuous transformation: It is where the contemplator, as both the viewer and the artist, moves between movement and stasis, between separation and union, between what is real and what is possible, between the visible and the sayable. This is a movement towards an improbable synthesis of waking life and the imagination. In this perspective, painting is the site, a place and an imaginary space, where paradoxes can, and do, co-exist. The artwork does not testify to difference, but opens it into a region, a productive space, and a site for moments of insight.
Dream window will open on Wednesday the 31st of March and run until Saturday the 01st of May 2021. This is the artist’s second solo exhibition with Salon Ninety One. Please note the gallery is currently trading by appointment only. On the day of the opening, and for the duration of the exhibition we will be hosting small group viewings. The artist will also be hosting a walkabout on the evening of the 31st of March. Booking is essential. Venue: 91 Kloof Street, Gardens, Cape Town.
If you wish to receive the catalogue or to make a booking to view the show, kindly contact +27 21 424 6930 or enquiries@salon91.co.za
JEANNE HOFFMAN. Self-portrait as a vase, 2021. Acrylic on Italian cotton. 1200 x 1000mm. Unframed
JEANNE HOFFMAN. Stage, 2021. Acrylic on Italian cotton. 600 x 500mm. Unframed