Jacob Trouba, Landing Pond, 2023, acrylic and oil on linen, 90 x 120 inches

Jacob Trouba
Landing My Mark

August 1 through August 23, 2024
Opens Thursday, August 1, 6–8pm

Harper’s Chelsea 512
512 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 10011
Monday–Friday, 10am–6pm

Harper’s is pleased to announce Landing My Mark, the gallery’s first solo exhibition with the New York Rangers captain and visual artist, Jacob Trouba. The presentation features new paintings by Trouba and opens on Thursday, August 1, 6–8pm.

Trouba’s visceral visual language is informed by critical lineages of instinctive mark-making. Studying the practices of canonized artists by the likes of Willem de Kooning, Yves Klein, and Cy Twombly, among others, Trouba developed his own idiosyncratic vocabulary of marks. Within his approach, Trouba stewards an intimate relationship between his body and the canvas, frequently imprinting the absorbent material with vestiges of his painted figure. The artist dresses in his traditional hockey gear as he strikes and skates into the canvas, resulting in a frenzy of energetic marks that speak to the combative nature of the beloved game. Other times, Trouba distills the sport into a flurry of stick slaps, skating lines, and punches. Once they land on the visual plane, these violent gestures transform into invigorating imagery—dynamic and fast-paced like the game itself. 

In works like Arrival and Departure, for example, streams of black, white, and cyan pigment collide and melt into one another. Arranged in stratified, yet, porous layers, the markings bear a structured quality to them, reflecting the texture of patterned fabric condensed against a malleable surface. Linear strokes zip along these pools of contrasting hues as if accelerating the motion in the already rapid scene. Together, these acrylic and oil paint impressions are mapped onto a periwinkle backdrop: the milky blue surface is weathered and worn like it has already been eroded by players orbiting a rink.  

In Searching for Others, the material trace of Trouba’s physical form is even more abundant. With a striking contrast of black and white tones, here, the eye wanders along the perimeter of at least four shadowy figures gripping hockey sticks. Entangled limbs fitted in meandering skates converge into one lively mass, staining the pristine white background. In this arresting work, Trouba appears to capture one of many fleeting moments across the sport, freezing this flash of intensive action in time. 

Ultimately, with his inventive process of de facto printmaking, Trouba is adept at quieting the pace amidst these animated scenes of play, divulging the overlooked poetics that color the high-pressure game. Across these exhilarating works, Trouba challenges the viewer to reflect on the corporeal nuances of the competitive sport. The artist’s fastidious observation of the human figure in motion makes way for beguiling compositions that trouble the boundaries between aggression and vulnerability. Landing My Mark invites us to take a deeper look at the architecture of public spectacle: in peeling back the layers, one might uncover unforeseen poetry in collective space. 

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Detail: Jacob Trouba, Landing Pond, 2023

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