Marcus Jahmal

Marcus Jahmal is an artist based in Queens, New York. His paintings depict domestic scenes and landscapes built from memory and imagination. In his images, which are both theatrical and quietly intimate, Jahmal showcases exuberant brushwork and his particular strengths as a colorist. As the art critic Roberta Smith wrote in the New York Times, Jahmal's "main love is color, which he uses stunningly, but he exploits everything – space, surface, color, image – to create various incongruities." The reds, oranges and other vibrant hues featured in his compositions create a symbolist language connected to the artist's subconscious and dreams. Jahmal collects his ideas through a practice of automatic drawing, moving intuitively through images he pulls from life or art history. From these drawings, he assembles a cast of objects, mixing his everyday experience with the modern and the myth. Read together, these motifs form a surreal environment with recognizable figures that sug­gest the complexities and invisible relationships within prosaic life. Jahmal's work has been exhibited in New York, Chicago, Miami, Tokyo, Japan, and throughout Europe.