Jennifer Packer: The Eye Is Not Satisfied With Seeing

With its two figures staring directly out from the canvas, this large dreamlike work invites the viewer into their private world. Compositionally, Packer’s predominant use of a pinkish-red palette (a color drawn from the 1982 Jean-Michel Basquiat painting Moses and the Egyptians) is disrupted only by flickers of green paint and white canvas. This formal decision unifies the painting, which seems to be as much about the two distinct figures as the objects that populate the work: multiple plants, a bicycle, and even the faint outline of a cat. Through her washy and drip-like painting technique, which yields incomplete figures that are based on individuals close to the artist, Packer limits the viewer’s access to her subjects, suggesting that they need careful protecting from casual display and exposure.