Pamela Jorden
Jorden’s paintings bring to mind atmospheric light or up-close views of tidal pools, using washes of paint that flow and disperse across the surfaces. The works reflect a physical and experiential interaction with landscape. Stains and pours of prismatic colors trail off in many directions, suggesting horizons, aerial perspectives, or the contained universe of an activated petri dish. The pigments in Jorden’s paint disperse within her diluted pours, creating alluvial flows that range from the heavily saturated to transparent, and collect or dissolve around and over the edges of the paintings. Jorden often refers to the landscape and qualities of light found in her home of Southern California, associating the exposed areas of linen with the colors and textures of sandy soil and city sidewalks.
Applying the paint in directed, pushed and dragged flows creates markers of Jorden’s active and physical manipulation of materials. The linen has been pulled, stretched, and incised to wrap around the convex and concave curves of their stretchers giving solidity to the atmospheric qualities of the painted surface. Like Ellsworth Kelly’s distinctly shaped works, Jorden’s circular or angular stretchers suggest warped or pinched forms, while textured flows of color disrupt linear perspective and encourage a subjective point of view.
Pamela Jorden (b.1969, Knoxville, TN) received a BFA from the University of Tennessee in 1992 and an MFA from California Institute of the Arts in 1996. Her work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery in New York, Philip Martin Gallery in Los Angeles, and Romer Young Gallery in San Francisco. Jorden has had recent exhibitions with the Pizzuti Collection (part of the Columbus Museum of Art in Columbus, OH) and Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. She lives and works in Los Angeles.
