02 Oct 2008

Elizabeth Jobim: Endless Lines

Lehman College Art Gallery is pleased to present the first major exhibition of the work of Elizabeth Jobim in the United States. Jobim's installation consists of painted canvases, placed side by side, using Lehman College Art Gallery itself as an integral part of the work. Her lines blend from one panel into the next in a row of square and rectangular surfaces that cover the walls of the gallery. Little by little they engulf their surroundings to create an architectural environment and envelop the viewer in the experience.

The daughter of Antonio Carlos Jobim--the father of Brazilian Bossa Nova--Elizabeth Jobim is influenced by music and its connections to time, intervals, and composition. Her work creates a play of continuity and disruption, like musical notes arranged on time. They stumble and stutter, lose and find themselves over and over again. In this endless game with no specific beginning or clear end, the lines keep on dancing and vibrating in blue at the pace of their own cadence.

Jobim's lines are confident and uncertain at the same time. They can be straight and contorted, firm and staggering, thick and thin, flat and volumetric. It is as though they are overcoming obstacles in trying to find their way into the space. Through the use of ultramarine blue paint applied with rollers--like the work of a wall painter--Jobim's canvases are unevenly painted, creating spots and stains that activate the whiteness of the background through the luminosity and transparency of the blue.

The work is about visual relationships, process, and translation. It is about surface and saturation, boundaries and edges, flow and rhythm. While the lines and shape of these paintings can suggest the expanse of a landscape or the proportions of a still-life or an interior, they offer an abstract meditation on space.

Elizabeth Jobim has exhibited at numerous museums and galleries internationally. She has a B.A. in Graphic Design from the Pontificia Universidade of Rio de Janeiro (PUC) and an MFA in Painting from the School of Visual Arts in New York. She lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Elizabeth Jobim: Endless Lines is being presented at Lurixs Arte Contemporânea in Rio de Janeiro and at the Lehman College Art Gallery in New York. An online catalogue will be available at www.lehman.edu/gallery.

Elizabeth Jobim: Endless Lines has been made possible with support from the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs and JPMorgan Chase Foundation.