Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, IL December 15 -January 27
I first encountered Jackie Saccoccio’s work in person at Corbett vs Dempsey in Chicago. I had stumbled upon her online a few years earlier and was instantly hooked. The vibrant colors, the all over painting technique that seemed to lead the eye on a very deliberate course are at once mesmerizing and disorienting.
Jackie utilizes a surprisingly limited number of techniques that yield wonderfully diverse vibrant paintings, often times manipulating the canvas by dragging one surface across another and working the painting from different angles. Her heavy use of saturated colors, and her copious drips give her work an almost psychedelic, Gerhard Richter cum Jackson Pollock feel. Her interest and talent for working with the materiality of paint are just as important as her interest in ambiguity through the evocation of places and people in her works and the duality in the process of looking at what is present, and what is concealed. The six paintings on display are dominated by an implosive pictorial energy achieved through an improvisational, controlled set of accidents. Confusions of color are used to overwhelm the viewer and the paintings are on such a massive scale that this effect is easily achieved. The paintings find their place etween the body of the viewer and the architecture of the space that they inhabit, creating a definite mood and sense of atmosphere.
There’s something classical in Saccoccio’s adherence to pure abstraction, updated for the digital age where most people will experience her work online, and not be disappointed.
Price range $35k-$45k
Spencer Hutchinson, Chicago Editor
volume 32 no 5 May / June 2018 p 25
Such a pricey artist ($35k – $45k) and no pictures? What is the criteria for which Jackie Saccoccio can command such prices, selling mostly in the US?
She passed away recently.