CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 1/29/2016

Jack Pierson: onthisisland

"Redfish Pass" (2015) is reproduced from Jack Pierson: onthisisland, Cheim & Read's new collection of paintings, watercolors, graphite drawings and driftwood assemblages produced on North Captiva Island, off the Gulf Coast of Florida, where the artist and his Chihauhau retreated last winter to work in "splendid isolation," according to essayist Jan Avgikos. Of the 12 small encaustic works he produced using local sand, Avgikos writes, "the paintings are dreamy with soft forms that hug each other and flow together, internalized and quiet. We readily see in them echoes of forms, gestures and compositions that materialized in the hundreds of graphite and watercolor paintings that immediately preceded them… Intuitively, we see JP tapping into forms that surrender themselves only under close scrutiny. It's what we've come to expect from him—his sensitive and sustained powers of observation."