Deborah Brown, Pink Tree, 2022, oil on canvas, 80 x 70 inches

Harper’s is pleased to announce Haunted House and Paradise, concurrent solo exhibitions by Deborah Brown and Max Jansons at the gallery’s East Hampton location. The exhibitions will open on June 25, 6–8pm, with a reception attended by the artists.

Deborah Brown
Haunted House

June 25 — July 20, 2022
Opens Saturday, June 25, 6–8pm

Harper’s East Hampton
87 Newtown Lane, East Hampton, NY 11937
Daily, 10am–6pm

In Haunted House, Deborah Brown presents a series of paintings depicting the quotidian in colors and textures that transform her scenes into dramatic dreamscapes. During the pandemic, Brown began to take a closer look at her surroundings in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Through her explorations of the neighborhood, the locale became a universe. Earlier works depict warehouses left empty—industrial structures standing vacant and void of activity. In more recent paintings, Brown shifts her gaze toward the unique residential architecture of her neighborhood, where private activity behind siding and glass panes sparks curiosity in the midst of deserted public spaces.

In Pink Tree, we see a simple townhouse transformed into something with a pulse. Aluminum siding is feathered in celadon green, applied by the artist in smooth, flowing lines to create gentle currents in the edifice. Golden light pours onto the home, spilling into the copper gateway that separates the domicile’s private space from the public. Are we watching from behind a tree? Or through a window across the street? Tree limbs protrude toward a door set deep into the face of the building, hovering just above the shadow of a passerby and their dog, whose lapis forms are stretched toward the gate. Who is the passerby? A lurker? A neighbor? 

The figures passing by are Deborah Brown and her dog, and the landscape is a residential block in her Brooklyn neighborhood. No other figures are present in the paintings, a reference to over two years of quarantine and isolation. Humble edifices presented in the absence of their inhabitants are transformed—seen as natural to their environment. The siding becomes the cliffside, and the fence, the moss of time. In this metaphorical space, our own shadow becomes a ghost, a home, a dreamland, a haunted house.

Deborah Brown (b. 1955, Pasadena, CA) received a BA from Yale University in 1976, and an MFA from Indiana University in 1978. Most recently, Brown’s work has been the subject of solo presentations at James Barron Art, Kent, CT (2022); Tennis Elbow at The Journal Gallery, New York (2022); Kunstmuseum Schloss Derneburg, Derneburg, DE (2021); GAVLAK, Palm Beach (2021); Anna Zorina Gallery, New York (2021); Nancy Littlejohn Fine Art, Houston (2021); and The Lodge, Los Angeles (2019). She has participated in group exhibitions at Harper’s, East Hampton (2022); Mindy Solomon Gallery, Miami (2022); Nassima Landau, Tel Aviv (2022); Bienvenu Steinberg & Partner, New York (2022); Anna Zorina Gallery, New York (2022 and 2020); and Volery Gallery, Dubai (2021), among other institutions. Brown’s work has been acquired by numerous collections, including Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi; Bass Museum of Art, Miami; DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA; and Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis. Brown lives and works in Brooklyn.

Max Jansons, Midnight Rider (for Sharon Jones), 2022, oil on linen, 59.5 x 73.5 inches

Max Jansons
Paradise

June 25 — July 20, 2022
Opens Saturday, June 25, 6–8pm

Harper’s East Hampton
87 Newtown Lane, East Hampton, NY 11937
Daily, 10am–6pm

“There is this moment of transferral…You can refer to it as paradise, call it whatever you want. I like the idea of paradise.”—Brice Marden

Paradise presents a selection of paintings by Max Jansons that reject the didactic in favor of the transformative. A flower becomes a redwood, reflected in the light of the moon, blooming with intricate symmetry in a kaleidoscope of blues through the azure sky. Petals part to reveal golden eyes. The stars fall beneath the horizon, playing with full skirts of golden leaves that sway in secret from bioluminescent stems. We float in the tension between representational and abstract images. 

For Jansons, the night and early morning are a time of calm when it is possible to think and feel the world without distractions. It is a time to encounter a secret, to see the poetry of life. He depicts these secrets in brush strokes and gestures that maintain the evidence of a human hand. From afar, Midnight Rider (for Sharon Jones) may appear a cerebral projection of a midnight dream, but up close, the vulnerability of the human experience is evident.

In Angel of the Night, we see the magic time of darkness anthropomorphized. Night is a woman with eyes closed against the light of the moon, stars falling from her dress toward marbled blooms. In Mysterious, a red-ringed eye amidst midnight hues suggests the gaze of another, whose head sits atop a slender stem or neck. Here humanity is an organic figure, an idea in a flower. 

To behold the flower, the bloom in Red, or the plume in Starry Night Flower, is to gaze into the organic until its constituent parts each become a portrait. The spirit of Jansons's abstractions are held in each brushstroke and unlocked by the relationship of each image to the viewer with each passing moment. The surfaces of his work are heterogeneous in texture, like the forms they suggest. The artist creates a visual symphony in patterns to invite the viewer to share in its sound, to look, slowly—to enter and be transported.

Max Jansons (b. 1974, New York, NY) received a BFA from University of California, Los Angeles in 1996, and an MFA from Columbia University in 1998. Most recently, his work has been exhibited at Harper’s, East Hampton (2022); Louise Alexander Gallery/AF Projects, Porto Cervo and Los Angeles (2021 and 2020); KARMA, New York (2020); Rebecca Camacho Presents, San Francisco (2020 and 2019); Galerie Lefebvre et Fils, Paris (2018); Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles (2017); and 5 Car Garage, Santa Monica (2017 and 2016). Jansons’s work has been acquired by institutions, including The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu; The Capital Group, Los Angeles; and Progressive Corporation, Mayfield, OH. Reviews of his work have appeared in Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and San Francisco Chronicle, among other publications. Jansons currently lives and works in Los Angeles.

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