A exhibition of solo painting work by Jean Plough comes to Old City’s Muse Gallery July 31–September 1, 2019
Passages is an exhibition of oil and acrylic paintings which are a transition between Plough’s large, simple color field paintings and smaller, more figurative landscapes. Many of the pieces depict a way of exit or entrance, a road, or pathway. Several works refer directly to traveling, either physically or psychologically, while others involve the motion or energy involved in transit. The exhibition launches with a public First Friday reception: August 2, 5–9pm, followed by an artist’s reception Sunday, August 1, 1–3pm
“Land and space inform my work,” says Plough. “The natural world can be seen and experienced as vivid and beautiful, and inspires us in ways we don’t understand. My work has two sources: the physical experience of landscape and the outdoors, and the felt sense of practicing meditation.”
The term ‘passage,’ utilized as a noun or a verb, contains multitudes, and this exhibition is meant to be in conversation with all of those therein. A throughway, a brief precipice from one place to another, one’s permission to enter, one’s permission to exit, one’s choice or right to proceed or move forward — they’re all encompassed by the title of the exhibition. Join Plough in this examination of the psychology of landscapes and passageways; these paintings contain multitudes.
[Muse Galley, 52 N. 2nd Street] July 31–September 1, 2019; musegalleryphiladelphia.com
Artist Jean Plough is one of Philadelphia’s best kept secrets. Perhaps the best painter to ever graduate from PCA (now UArts), her work is world class, right up there with Rauchenberg, de Kooning, Rothko, and others of that caliber. See her most recent work at the Muse Gallery in Old City. Real art is a rare treat.
Jean Plough’s latest work shows a shift from memory-retrieving landscape field paintings to a personal exploration of uncertainty: intersections and entrances, vectors and vertex — clarity, ambiguity and possibilities — expressed in vivid color. A student of the late great Warren Rohrer, Jean’s abstract expressionist paintings are something you definitely want on your wall. I have several on mine.