Jeffrey Ripple: New Paintings

Press Release

Hackett-Freedman Gallery announces an exhibition of new, large-scale paintings on paper by Jeffrey Ripple, July 10 – August 30, 2008. A reception for the artist will take place on Thursday, July 10, from 5:30 to 7:30pm. A full-color catalogue with an essay by art critic Gail Leggio is available.

Jeffrey Ripple’s paintings are extraordinary paeans to the vigor and strangeness of nature. In his most recent work, he continues to meditate on the natural world and thecycle of life—flowering, fruiting, and dying. Ripple’s compositions have increased in complexity since his last Hackett-Freedman exhibition in 2002. The format is larger, and sometimes comprised of separate panels—a technique that allows the artist to aggregate content and approach his compositions in a more organic manner. These ambitious compositions reinforce Ripple’s view of nature as both wondrous and unplumbed.

Ripple paints from life—fruit is allowed to dry out, rot, and split open; petals to fall off; and leaves to wilt. This process allows him to incorporate the idea of time passing or, as he states, “to show the evidence” of nature's inevitable evolution. By focusing on change as opposed to capturing ephemeral, perfect beauty, Ripple expands upon a still-life tradition that dates back to 17th-century Dutch flower paintings and Greco-Roman images of hospitality.

In addition to their meticulously rendered and placed forms, these works are also marked by their luminous golden-green backgrounds. The textured, negative space sets a consistent tone within the painting, one that is reminiscent of the use of silk in Chinese painting, or of gold leaf in medieval religious icons. By playing mass against void and light against shadow, Ripple is able to concentrate the essence of his subject matter and generate an aura of intimacy and quasi-religious space.1 In this way, these paintings with their intense palette and sharp-edged forms (made possible by the paper ground); unusual perspectives (the objects are often observed from above); and concentrated realism transcend traditional botanical illustration and move into the realm of the divine.

Ripple works slowly and painstakingly. His highly sought-after paintings are held in many public collections in the midwest. In addition to his better-known still lifes, he is also an accomplished landscape and figure painter, and was recently cited as one of the best still-life artists in America by James F. Cooper in the American Arts Quarterly (fall 2007). This is Jeffrey Ripple’s third exhibition at Hackett-Freedman Gallery.