Jaime Franco: New Paintings

March 17, 1994 - April 23, 1994

Yoshii Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new paintings by Jaime Franco. In this latest body of work, Franco continues his exploration of light and geometry, balancing rigorous grid-based compositions against a hushed Romanticism.

Franco’s paintings unfold slowly, demanding pateince from their viewers but rewarding them with a rich outpouring of painterly allusion and sensual pleasure. As Charles Riley writes in the accompanying catalogue, “Franco’s paintings have a way of allowing subtle and elemental forces – such as color, geometry, and light – to rise from their depths to surfaces of deceptive strength.” Franco’s paintings are labor intensive – many layers are built up and scraped away to create a physically palpable inner presence as well as record the process of their own creation.

Jaime Franco paints without irony, yet he is fully aware of the problems facing any contemporary painter. Critic John Yau has written, “Rather than opting for variation on a theme, Franco approaches the grid as a convention that can be developed in ways that are simultaneously internally consistent and self-questioning.” In these new paintings, Franco continues his push for a vital investigation of painting’s past and future and a thoughtful beauty for its present.