SMOOTHIE QUEEN

Jessie Binder’s art is beguilingly simple, but her paintings are the result of well calculated accumulations of mark making and abstraction. Memories and feelings from everyday life are at the heart of her work and the inspiration for her creative process, intuitively selecting colors to convey just the right mood. At first glance they can be wildly disorienting, with no immediate image or recognizable forms, as if we were unexpectedly struck from behind or witnessing the afterimage of bright fireworks. The chaos alone can be enough to hold our gaze. However, the magic of Binder’s work comes from longer looks, as images begin to come into focus just as we begin to let our minds wander: an hourglass, a house, a landscape begins to emerge, not as a photograph, but as a distant memory, a faded and blurry image on the peripherals of our mind. Looking at her work is like trying to remember an old friend’s face from a dream; we know that it’s there, but the image is just on the tip of our tongues.