Jason Brinekerhoff
50 Heads

January 10 to February 22, 2015

Ampersand is pleased to present 50 Heads, an exhibition of new drawings by Jason Brinkerhoff, his second solo show at the gallery. Focused exclusively on variations of female portraiture, this new body of work highlights an aspect of Brinkerhoff’s practice that is often overshadowed by the numerous female figures he has drawn over the years. The exhibition also serves as evidence of an ongoing collaboration between artist and gallery, whereby the conceptual ideas presented in HEAD FAKE (published by Ampersand in 2013) are now manifest as drawings. While the printed ephemera and snapshots found in the book may or may not correspond directly to the new works, they certainly articulate how images of women that Brinkerhoff collects (some famous, but most unknown) are points of reference in his process. Fleshing out the contours of so many faces, however, is a departure from an overall body of work in which the features of his heads are mostly abstracted or missing altogether, replaced instead by the nuanced textures of oval cutouts that serve as a signature touch. Still visible in some drawings are restrained allusions to art historical languages, but here we also see the artist defining a style of line and mark making that is exclusively his own. Many of the heads seem to defy two-dimensionality and are presented more like strange masks or small sculptures set upon an unseen base. Further, the beauty of his colors set against diverse textures is tempered by a look in the eyes that feels haunted or mesmerized by an unknown vitality.