Bright, blurry, but vibrant paintings. This is my impression of Jennifer Packer’s artworks. Jennifer Packer is an American painter based in New York. Her works are on view in the exhibition Jennifer Packer: The Eye is Not Satisfied with Seeing at the Whitney Museum of American Art, from October 30, 2021, to April 17, 2022.
Jennifer Packer’s arts combines observation, memory, and improvisation. She painted her intimate memories with friends and family members. She also depicts flower still paintings representing her emotional and physical essence of the contemporary Black lives figures.
Jennifer Packer, Tia (2017),Jennifer Packer/Matt Grubb https://www.bbc.com/
Tia (2017) is a portrait of a man wearing glasses, sitting and gazing at the viewer. Behind him, purple flowers are patterned in a stretched yellow background . Another salient thing is his flower socks that contrast with surrounding colors. This portrait implies a strong and warm personality, probably a person from the Packer’s closest circle.
Jennifer Packer, Blessed Are Those Who Mourn (Breonna! Breonna!), 2020. Oil on canvas, 118 × 172 1/2 in. (300 × 438 cm). Private collection. © Jennifer Packer. Photograph by George Darrel. Image courtesy Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York, and Corvi-Mora, London. https://whitney.org/exhibitions/
Blessed Are Those Who Mourn (Breonna! Breonna!) is one of Packer’s recent works. It depicts a daily life scene of a black man laying relaxed on a sofa in his flat in pink paint. This painting was created to commemorate the killing of Breonna Taylor by police officers in Louisville on March 13, 2020. It portrays the emptiness after being left by a loved one. This work was painted in soft yellow, pink, and blue colors which is so soothing and reminds us of the innermost relationship with others.
Jennifer Packer, Say Her Name. https://whitney.org/events/
Say Her Name is a painting of a flower bouquet dedicated to Sandra Bland who died in custody in 2015. Packer’s bouquet was painted in its mess and wild characters. Dark green is the dominant color in this painting. Told to BBC, Packer said that her painting is an expression of an inability to deal with the loss of Sandra Bland.
For Packer, her inclination to paint, especially from life, is a completely political one. ‘Representation and particularly, observation from life, are ways of bearing witness and sharing testimony’.
Jenifer Packer’s paintings deal with loss and tragedies of institutional violence against Black Americans. Packer elaborates on various genres of arts, representing them in a political and contemporary light, while remaining rooted in a deeply personal context. This reminds me of the second-wave feminism slogan “the personal is political”. This slogan underscored the relation between personal experience and larger social and political structures.
This exhibition features 34 works of Jennifer Packer’s dating from 2011 to 2020, including portraits of artists from Packer’s New York circle, monochromatic paintings, intimate interiors, and flower still life. Jennifer Packer’s artworks are fascinating, and suggest that life is meaningful, regardless of the race and nationality.