86700

Online

Virginia Jaramillo

Foundations

May 13 – Jun 24, 2023

Virginia Jaramillo has been exploring the expressive and imaginative possibilities of geometric abstraction for more than six decades.

Virginia Jaramillo in her studio, Courtesy of Virginia Jaramillo and Hales, London and New York — Virginia Jaramillo in her studio. Courtesy Virginia Jaramillo

Guided by a deeply philosophical approach, the artist often meditates on and draws inspiration from history, science fiction, and scientific theories as part of her process. Her works use a language of abstraction to uncover complex relationships between physical, temporal, and spiritual phenomena that defy any singular image or form.

This focused online presentation of four works on paper from Jaramillo’s Foundations series complements (opens in a new window) East of the Sun, West of the Moon, the artist’s first-ever solo exhibition in Los Angeles—and her debut show with Pace—running through June 24. Each of the nine new paintings featured in Jaramillo’s in-person presentation at Pace in LA are deeply related to her past bodies of work, including the Foundations artworks spotlighted in this exclusively digital showing.

86702-1 — Virginia Jaramillo, Foundations 369, 1982, Linen fiber with hand-ground earth pigments, 34-1/2" × 24-1/2" (87.6 cm × 62.2 cm) 44-1/8" × 34-1/8" × 1-3/8" (112.1 cm × 86.7 cm × 3.5 cm), frame

86700-1 — Virginia Jaramillo, Foundations 434, 1982, Linen fiber with hand-ground earth pigments, 35" × 25" (88.9 cm × 63.5 cm) Framed Size: 44-1/8 x 34-1/8 x 1-3/8 inches

Central to Jaramillo’s practice—which she has been cultivating since her childhood in LA—are her experimentations with materiality through various media, textures, pigments, and technical processes. She first garnered wide acclaim for her curvilinear paintings, her most famous body of work, which she began creating in the late 1960s and continued producing into the 1970s. For these and later works, the artist drew inspiration from her high school visits to designer Charles Eames’s studio as well as the Japanese concept of Ma, which centers on the resonance and significance of negative space.

Virginia Jaramillo at Dieu Donné Paper Mill, New York City, 1986, Image courtesy of Virginia Jaramillo and Hales, London and New York 3 — Virginia Jaramillo at Dieu Donné Papermill, New York, ca. 1986. Courtesy Virginia Jaramillo

Virginia Jaramillo at Dieu Donné Paper Mill, New York City, 1986, Image courtesy of Virginia Jaramillo and Hales, London and New York 1 — Virginia Jaramillo at Dieu Donné Papermill, New York, ca. 1986. Courtesy Virginia Jaramillo

Virginia Jaramillo at Dieu Donné Paper Mill, New York City, 1986, Image courtesy of Virginia Jaramillo and Hales, London and New York 25 — Virginia Jaramillo (bottom right) working with Paul Wong (far right) and others at Dieu Donné Papermill, New York, ca.1986. Courtesy Virginia Jaramillo

Virginia Jaramillo at Dieu Donné Paper Mill, New York City, 1986, Image courtesy of Virginia Jaramillo and Hales, London and New York 1 — Virginia Jaramillo at Dieu Donné Papermill, New York, ca. 1986. CourtesyVirginia Jaramillo

Virginia Dieu Donne_Kemper — Virginia Jaramillo pouring paper pulp into a mould at Dieu Donné Papermill, New York. Courtesy the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO

In the 1980s, Jaramillo took a hiatus from painting, creating abstractions made from linen fibers and hand-ground earth pigments, returning to works on canvas in 2017. The four works in this online exhibition, all of which date to 1982, were created during this interlude in her career. Each of these artworks reflects the artist’s longstanding investigations into the sensorial effects of color and line, exemplifying her deep and enduring interest in textural nuance and geometric dynamism.

“In her solitary and patient meditations of space, light, and color, Virginia Jaramillo pursues and finds more than mere solutions; she finds a way,” artist Grégoire Müller wrote of Jaramillo’s linen fiber works in 1982. “There are worlds to look at: shapes and lines that act as dams and channels for the slow drift of pigments.”

86703 PNG — Virginia Jaramillo, Foundations 312, 1982, Linen fiber with hand-ground earth pigments, 35" × 25" (88.9 cm × 63.5 cm)

86701 — Virginia Jaramillo, Foundations 365, 1982, Linen fiber with hand-ground earth pigments, 34-1/4" × 24-1/4" (87 cm × 61.6 cm) Framed Size: 44-1/8 x 34-1/8 x 1-3/8 inches

For the Foundations series, Jaramillo added her chosen pigments to vats of liquid paper. As part of this process embracing chance and spontaneity, colors take on different densities and saturations. These varying hues make up her vast, illusionistic compositions, in which coalescing layers of color, line, and shape speak to the poetic and spiritual nature of her mode of making.

As Jaramillo herself wrote of her handmade paper artworks in 1981, “My work is an aesthetic investigation which seeks to translate into visual terms the mental and structural patterns we all superimpose on our world—the framework of reference points we use to distinguish the ‘real’ from the ‘unreal.’”

Virginia Jaramillo at Dieu Donné Paper Mill, New York City, 1986, Image courtesy of Virginia Jaramillo and Hales, London and New York 38 — Virginia Jaramillo at Dieu Donné Papermill, New York, ca. 1986. Courtesy Virginia Jaramillo

To inquire about works by Virginia Jaramillo, please email us at inquiries@pacegallery.com.

85852_JARAMILLO_v01_web

Virginia Jaramillo

East of the Sun, West of the Moon

May 13 – Jun 24, 2023

Journal

View All

Past, Virginia Jaramillo, Foundations, May 13, 2023