Marcus Jahmal
Metavisions, Dec 10 – Jan 29, 2017

CANADA is pleased to present Metavisions, Marcus Jahmal’s first solo exhibition in New York City. Jahmal's paintings depict domestic scenes built from memory and imagination. The rooms are pulled in and out of perspective, anchored by objects seemingly animate or surreal, and painted in earnest detail. Theatrical yet intimate, the spaces bring to mind Van Gogh’s bedroom in Arles.

Chromatic violets, reds, and blues sweep through Jahmal’s compositions, diverting energy around a constellation of strange happenings. A fire extinguisher discharges as though operated by a ghost; a turtle naps under a lamp, basking in its raking, artificial light. Furniture hangs askew, levitates, over a field of floorboards, each painted with consideration as though to emit a gentle ‘creak.’

Jahmal collects his ideas through a practice of automatic drawing, moving intuitively through motifs he pulls from life or his self-education in art history. From these preliminary drawings, he assembles a cast of objects, mixing the modern, the mythic and the ordinary domestic. Read together, they form a sort of symbolist language that feels unrestrained by time or place.

Permeating throughout is Jahmal’s interest in seeing; he paints mirrors, windows, or portals that suggest an alternative vision, a painting within a painting. In these moments, Jahmal offers an escape hatch from the room--into a secret passageway or a lush landscape just out of reach.

Marcus Jahmal (b.1990) draws from a background in music, street art, game design, and fashion. His paintings have been exhibited in New York, Chicago, Miami, Rotterdam, and Tokyo, Japan, and in 2016, Jahmal was included in CANADA's Frieze New York booth curated by Katherine Bernhardt. The artist holds a graduate certificate in Audio Research and lives and works in Brooklyn.

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