The Jewel
Jay DeFeo
JAY DEFEOM, 1959. OIL ON CANVAS.
In 1958, Jay DeFeo began two works. One would take her eight years, end up weighing more than a ton, and cause her to take a four-year break from art – it’s final name would be The Rose and it is regarded as a seminal piece of 20th century creation. The other, The Jewel shown here, took a little over a year and shares many qualities with its birth partner. Monumental in scale, it is more than three metres tall and a metre wide, it shares the same composition of rays that emanate from a central point and both works seem to speak to a religious transcendence, a divine light that provokes and inspires. Above all, these paintings blur the line between mediums. Oil paint is layered on so thick, so repeatedly, that the two-dimensional canvases are transformed into three dimensional sculptures, the process of creation literally reaching out to the viewer, escaping from flatness to hold physical space in the gallery. Textural density combines with geometric abstraction to create a modern work of alchemy.