Jackie& Brian& Eartha& Joan.: Jaclyn Conley
The paintings in this series are a way of considering the question; who are we supposed to look up to? What have we decided they are for us?
We seem to need leaders in order to know ourselves. Leaders to look to, made through pictures. Searching through the White House photo archives in the series All The President’s Children, moving through the Presidential museums and monuments, speaking to the tourists of these places I became more interested in what these presidential figures have become for us than who they actually were. They have become characters for us in a historic and evolving narrative; armatures for us to hang up our own stories. We’ve always needed these idealized characters to place ourselves; to justify, anchor, to imagine ourselves. Painting is a space for this imagining.
In Jackie& Brian& Eartha& Joan. I’m continuing an interest in American’s self-conceptions, now looking at American pop culture icons of the past who have similarly become mythical figures. Though the images are abstracted and transformed through a process of painting and collage they are seated in a sense of awe and nostalgia.
“Our favorite people and our favorite stories become so not by any inherent virtue, but because they illustrate something deep in the grain, something unadmitted.” - Joan Didion
The paintings in this series are a way of considering the question; who are we supposed to look up to? What have we decided they are for us ? They are stories ingrained in our own, guides representing a way to move through the world.
The characters in Jackie& Brian& Eartha& Joan. are a varied cast of lives that are harrowing, triumphant, tragic and beautiful. They represent ideas of the past that we cling to today. We invoke them like saints cards.
Jaclyn Conley
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Jaclyn ConleyJimi, 2020oil on panel with collage213.36 x 152.4 cm
84 x 60 in -
Jaclyn ConleyRed Jackie, 2020oil on panel with collage213.36 x 152.4 cm
84 x 60 in -
Jaclyn ConleyThe 7th Brother, 2020oil on panel with collage101.6 x 101.6 cm
40 x 40 in -
Jaclyn ConleyAfter The Battle of Camperdown, 2019oil on panel collage152.4 x 152.4 cm
60 x 60 in -
Jaclyn ConleyBlue Madonna, 2020oil on panel with collage76.2 x 60.96 cm
30 x 24 in -
Jaclyn ConleyCaroline And Jackie, 2020oil on panel with collage152.4 x 121.92 cm
60 x 48 in -
Jaclyn ConleyEartha, 2020oil on panel with collage213.36 x 152.4 cm
84 x 60 in -
Jaclyn ConleyEartha at El Rancho, 2020oil on panel with collage213.36 x 152.4 cm
84 x 60 in -
Jaclyn ConleyEaster, Palm Beach, 2019oil on panel193.04 x 193.04 cm
76 x 76 in -
Jaclyn ConleyIt’s OK Brother Brian, 2020oil on panel with collage213.36 x 152.4 cm
84 x 60 in -
Jaclyn ConleyJackie with Flowers, 2020oil on panel collage20 x 15 cm
7 13/16 x 5 14/16 in -
Jaclyn ConleyJimi, 2020oil on panel with collage213.36 x 152.4 cm
84 x 60 in -
Jaclyn ConleyJoan, 2020oil on panel with collage213.36 x 152.4 cm
84 x 60 in -
Jaclyn ConleyMJ and The Gipper, 2020oil on panel with collage60.96 x 60.96 cm
24 x 24 in -
Jaclyn ConleyNight of Light, 2020oil on panel collage101.6 x 76.2 cm
40 x 30 in -
Jaclyn ConleySmile, 2020oil on panel collage76.2 x 101.6 cm
30 x 40 in -
Jaclyn ConleySweet Caroline, 2020oil on panel with collage121.92 x 91.44 cm
48 x 36 in -
Jaclyn ConleyThe Eternal Light, 2020oil on panel101.6 x 76.2 cm
40 x 30 in -
Jaclyn ConleyThe Luncheon, 2020oil on panel with collage40.64 x 81.28 cm
16 x 32 in
Diptych : 2 x 16 x 16 inches -
Jaclyn ConleyThe Muse, 2020oil on panel with collage213.36 x 152.4 cm
84 x 60 in -
Jaclyn ConleyBlue Jackie, 2020oil on panel with collage213.36 x 152.4 cm
84 x 60 in