3 May 2025
Jake Longstreth at Max Hetzler, quiet but bold stand-offs between California light and shade. A disorienting thing to be standing in London and immediately feel the familiar naked flatness of the light, especially in paintings like Along I-210 and In Los Angeles (3). Thin and thoughtfully handled all around, but still pretty muscular and with just enough gestural abstraction for flora to become detached floating marks up close, each work expanding and contracting again depending on viewing distance.
Tessa and I both lingered on Los Angeles (4) the longest. The only one in the show with a palpable marine layer, its central Eucalyptus tree having a Wanderer above the Sea of Fog moment looking out over an expanse that reminded us of the view from our parents' house in the Palisades. For me its power lies in how effectively it plays with the softening of perception; the entirety of the tree's form is darkened and dulled, its shadow thrown towards the viewer to imply light falling on its opposite side. But the light's source is that misty expanse, somehow luminous despite almost imperceptibly subtle gray-blue gradations forming the horizon through the haze. Lovely bit of painting.