61 x 99.1 cm
Jesse Bransford’s second exhibition at SHAHEEN and first at the gallery since 2005 is comprised of eight drawings that represent a cross section of his work and developmental trajectory over the past 20 years. The artist's exquisitely executed, often ambitiously scaled drawings pull from, juxtapose and conflate a vast array of traditions and influences, as well as a broad spectrum of visual styles and modes of image production. The visual elements that comprise any given work are mined from a variety of sources, including alchemy, material science, science fiction, fantasy and the occult, all of which have extensive histories, and all of which make extensive use of diagrams and pictorial languages to describe their systems of knowledge and belief. In rendering his sophisticated compositions, Bransford calls on and combines prevalent stylistic characteristics of Art Nouveau, medieval woodcut / woodblock printmaking, and material science’s visual presentation of celestial phenomena. By combining and re-contextualizing elements culled from such a disparate range of sources, most of which are at historical odds with one another, and many of which have long since been marginalized or disregarded as irrelevant, the artist has forged a distinct visual language that attempts to explore and address humankind’s relationship to intangibles -- especially the concepts of the cosmos and infinity – and illustrate its ongoing inability to adequately depict the infinite. While these themes have remained consistent throughout Bransford’s mature oeuvre, the work that he has produced since his first exhibition at SHAHEEN in 2005 has come to incorporate an expanded range of influences, especially the mind-altering shaman led experiences in which he has participated in the Peruvian jungle. Along the way, as these experiences have sparked a move towards embodiment and away from the analytical, Bransford’s execution has become accordingly more varied, as loose washy passages intermingle with the crisp graphic visual stylings that exclusively defined his drawings of the 2000’s.
A native of Atlanta, Jesse Bransford received his MFA from Columbia University in 2000, and currently lives and works in Catskill Village, NY and New York City, where he is a Professor of Drawing at New York University. Over the past 25 years, his work has been exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide, including solo exhibitions / projects at the UCLA Hammer Museum; Locust Projects, Miami; and the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum. In addition, Bransford’s work is included in numerous major museum collections, including the Buffalo AKG Art Museum; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Perez Art Museum, Miami; New Museum of Contemporary Art; the RISD Museum; and the Francis Young Tang Teaching Museum and Gallery of Art at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY.