Jake Baglin


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Twenty Four
RUBICON ARI
2024

This group of paintings and drawings seem to be made in the last year (see title of show). Continuing with what looks to be the same subjects and developing or just changing the approach to touch. Portraits and a nude occupy a firmer position here then past exhibitions. In fact these heads dominate the landscapes they could have come out from although there are no figures in the landscapes. 

Supports appear worked and reworked, layers upon layers until they are thick enough or the correct weight, or have lost weight in the case of the drawings, to be considered finished. Browns and ochres, reds, yellows, fairly standard pallet for an early 19th century english landscape painter inspired by the Dutch painters. Constable wouldn’t be a fan though, preferring a natural pallet. When gazing into the turgid earths and spots of charcoal one does realise a depth and charm, a presence perhaps, an entering occurs and reading begins to be possible. Surfaces are protruding off the support and are made of colours that are typically unattractive to us, these things are repulsive in there physicality and resistant in design. Thick paint can be a shallow effect, a crutch for some practitioners, but like the accumulated pigment the repulsion is surface level and there is a warmth and knowing.