Justine Fisher, The Lion Sleeps Tonight, 2024, oil on canvas, 84 x 72 inches

Justine Fisher
April come she will

April 4 through May 5, 2024
Opens Thursday, April 4, 2024, 6–8pm

Harper’s Chelsea 534
534 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 10011
Tuesday–Saturday, 10am–6pm

Harper’s is pleased to announce April come she will, artist Justine Fisher’s debut solo exhibition with the gallery. The presentation features new oil paintings by Fisher and opens Thursday, April 4, 6–8pm, with a reception attended by the artist. 

Across the works that comprise April come she will, Fisher captures the poetics of light within landscape painting. The artist documents the otherworldly enchantment of the forest with a prismatic approach to color. Repeatedly, a chorus of warm and cool tones blends into bewitching scenes. Entangled trees meet brilliant sunsets. Pools of shallow water reflect kaleidoscopic terrain. Sometimes, shadowy figures integrate with these lush grounds, becoming one with their geography. 

Fisher begins each composition by mapping out light. These luminous streams of pigment range from vivid yellow to robust red as they warm landscapes with abundant foliage. Calling on these effulgent areas to inform layout, the artist heeds an adaptive mode of painting, making way for the viewer’s interiority to also guide the work. 

We witness this provocation of internal reflection in works like Tangled Up In Blue. The eye wanders about a sinuous path of knotted tree limbs here. Vibrant roots curl into milky pastel earth while thick branches extend above, greeting each other across a canopy of leafage. Pockets of light flood in between the dense vegetation, inviting the viewer to get lost in the clearing of their choosing. Two figures dwell among these lively woods. Perched up against a tree and shaded in verdant tones, the duo appears to morph into their environment, inviting rumination on the cyclical nature of living ecosystems.

Fisher’s keen awareness of the human experience of the landscape recalls the pursuits of nineteenth-century impressionist painters by the likes of artists Claude Monet, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, among others. The artist summons this aesthetic tradition with a harmonious interplay between color, light, and paint application in Bookends. Here, Fisher conjures a smoky sky at dawn with her beaming underpainting: electric washes of green and fiery auburn shimmer beneath the surface. Nearing the bottom of the canvas, two children, spot-lit by a flood of glistening light, pick from a patch of flowers. Fisher layers thick indigo streaks to depict the florals, striking an invigorating tension of opaque and translucent marks throughout the work. 

Ultimately, Fisher’s practice is dialogic by nature: manipulating light and form, the artist challenges the onlooker to a journey of visual and sensorial introspection. In doing so, Fisher proposes a language of seeing that is driven by instinct and curiosity. She inspires the viewer to linger amidst mythical lands where meandering trees are the protagonists. It is here, in these imagined scenes, wherein color and light incite transcendence.

Justine Fisher (b. 1984, Cape Town, South Africa) received a BA from New York University in 2007, and an MFA from New York Academy of Art in 2013. Most recently, her work has been exhibited at One Hour Ahead, Aspen (2023); Alexander Gray Associates, New York (2022); Lehmann Maupin, Aspen (2021); and Goodman Gallery, East Hampton (2021). Fisher lives and works in New York City.

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Detail: Justine Fisher, The Lion Sleeps Tonight, 2024

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