A Lesson in Longing

Narrator: Packer titled this monumental canvas A Lesson in Longing. 

Jane Panetta: For me, one of the most striking things about it is the places in which she leaves portions of the canvas really incomplete. That she doesn’t give you all the information, that you kind of visually have to fill it in for yourself. And I think for her, she’s talked a lot about, in painting Black individuals and people in her community and her family, a desire not to give over the full information about the sitters. That there’s a desire to protect her intimacy with them and just as a means to protect them, to not fully put them out into the world.

I’m also really struck by the use of this pinkish-red color throughout the painting and I think for Jennifer, she’s also always interested and almost challenging herself to think about how one can construct a painting. And so has been interested often in making these monochromatic works that are dominated by a single color.

This painting is also one that I think feels almost drawing-like. Both in the way she’s rendered aspects of it very finely and in a very detailed way. And she’s, of course, an artist that’s also very interested in drawing and that’s a big piece of her practice. But I also think the way that she’s left the painting to drip and the way that the painting has kind of slid down the canvas in many places often completes the composition. And I think it also is a way that she’s really reminding you that this is a painting that she’s made that’s experimenting with how you fill out a composition.