Nahmad Projects / London

Jan Frank: New Paintings

In the words of the art critic Adrian Dannatt, Jan “continues to embody the paradigm of the New York painter,” having been molded by friendships with American greats including Willem de Kooning and Chuck Close. The paintings expand his exploration of line, layering and repeating appropriated contours made by himself and other artists. A wall-mounted aluminium outline of Frank Lloyd Wright’s house is an early example of his appropriative method, and a mixed media installation uses video and sculpture to unpack his drawing process in space and time. “For more than a year I drew after the nude, finding descriptive line to put into stages of abstract configuration. This process still keeps going. I now work from a large body of existing lines, by other artists and myself. These are enlarged and􀀁screened on to the canvas. These lines are pure, they are tools. My archive of lines is very selective, a vocabulary of my own.” – (Jan Frank on the exhibition Jan Frank: New Paintings, 2018).