Jocelyn Hobbie
Fredericks & Freiser is pleased to announce an exhibition of new paintings and works on paper by Jocelyn Hobbie. Since the mid-90s, Hobbie has painted the female figure with a heightened naturalism and an enhanced degree of saturated color that reveals an uneasy relationship to realism and firmly roots these striking paintings in the age of post abstraction.
For this exhibition, Hobbie will exhibit paintings on canvas and paper completed over the last few years. Echoing styles as divergent as the expressive figuration of New Objectivity and the rich, layered patterning of Ukiyo-e, Hobbie hones a formal style in which neoclassical figures with lambent or emotionally obscure expressions are depicted amid boldly graphic clothing and vivid floral settings. Hobbie’s seamless, polished surfaces and dynamic compositions meld her subjects amid pictorial environments brimming with painterly precision. The canvases and works on paper have the elemental and thematic characteristics of portraiture, yet the artificiality of Hobbie’s crystalized women avert emotional specificity in favor of ambiguity. The atmosphere is mystical, sensual, and highly feminine. Hobbie’s female subjects exist proudly with a nonchalance that synthesizes themes of abundance and beauty with an elegiac detachment from contemporary life.
Jocelyn Hobbie was born in Northampton, MA. Her solo exhibitions include Jack Tilton Gallery, New York; GNYP Gallery, Berlin; Jessica Silverman, San Francisco (Upcoming). Group shows include “Gloss” at Tick Tack, Antwerp; “Women in Paris” at Eric Hussenot, Paris; “Stockholm Sessions” at Carl Kostyal, Stockholm; “Female Now,” curated by Joan Tucker at Phillips, Hong Kong; “Vanishing Ocular,” curated by David Salle at Rental Gallery, East Hampton; “Hope and Hazard: A Comedy of Eros” curated by Eric Fischl at the Hall Art Foundation. She is featured in Painting People: Figure Painting Today by Charlotte Mullins, published by D.A.P. This is her fourth solo exhibition at Fredericks & Freiser.
Jocelyn Hobbie’s vibrant paintings explode off the canvas in a riot of pattern and color, the remote, enigmatic female subjects at their centers glimpsed at a remove.
In Brooklyn-based artist Jocelyn Hobbie’s paintings (previously featured here), the figure serves as an anchor. From there, she starts to piece everything together, giving equal attention to each element, whether it’s a face, petal, or pattern. “Even though my paintings have a certain finish and deliberateness, they aren’t planned out,” she explains. “It’s very much about discovery and invention.” Born from her imagination, the environments she creates are thick with activity—plants and patterns crammed together in a blend of representation and abstraction. Hobbie likens this coalescence to the makeup of a tide pool: “it all becomes textures and colors, but everything is quite particular and distinct.” The quality and feel of the painting itself is everything for her: “Visuality is the primary value, an end in itself,” she says. “I guess I’m after an experience that’s sensual, with the possibility of delight. My choice to paint women points to histories & complexities beyond the frame.”
From Jocelyn Hobbie’s paintings of hyper-realistic models at Fredericks & Freiser in New York to Tony Matelli’s gravity defying sculptures at Nino Mier Gallery in Los Angeles, these exhibitions are not to be missed.
by Paul Laster
By Rebecca Anthony, Published 14/11/2022
Whoever said less is more, clearly hasn’t met Jocelyn Hobbie. We spent 10 minutes getting to know the American talent behind the lush maximalist works of women.