Now through March 7, 2026, Tuesday - Saturday, 10:00am - 5:30pm
Modernism is pleased to present "Jerry KEARNS: Zero-Sum." The artist's 11th solo exhibition with the gallery features six paintings and nine drawings, in which Kearns employs the ever-present vocabulary of popular culture, film, TV, cartoons, advertising, photographs, etc., to describe our reality where mediated information has replaced direct experience.
In a vein the artist dubs "Psychological Pop," Kearns samples and repurposes the visual vocabulary which defines perception and shapes contemporary mythology. "I aim for psychological history paintings reflecting the time and place where we live," he says. In a fashion similar to the early works of James Rosenquist and Andy Warhol, Kearns's works strive for moral consciousness. And with a title like "Zero-Sum," it is evident that the cultural state Kearns portrays is that of a win-lose scenario.
"While the need to connect and build relationships was as important as ever, the political culture was pushing us ever further into self-involved isolation," explains Kearns. This isolation is manifested in Kearns's lonely compositions which depict only a single subject each. In comparison to Kearns's prior work, delightfully cacophonous and often teeming with multiple characters in vivid color, these new, mostly pastel, paintings and drawings, like the modern life, feel empty and void of connection.
The artist explains "The use of the 1950's cartoons reflect my desire to locate personal / psychological dialogues that read as implications of long-term societal shifts away from the values of an earlier moment in America's cultural history. The quieting of the compositions along with the pastel colors suggest memories of things gone by. The image becomes a dream-like echo of personal and societal loss."
"Sharing community, forming empathy for the other, was receding into the past," says Kearns. "I tried to capture something of that loss in these paintings."
Free
Presented by MODERNISM INC..
show less
Modernism is pleased to present "Jerry KEARNS: Zero-Sum." The artist's 11th solo exhibition with the gallery features six paintings and nine drawings, in which Kearns employs the ever-present vocabulary of popular culture, film, TV, cartoons, advertising, photographs, etc., to describe our reality where mediated information has replaced direct experience.
In a vein the artist dubs "Psychological Pop," Kearns samples and repurposes the visual vocabulary which defines perception and shapes contemporary mythology. "I aim for psychological history paintings reflecting the time and place where we live," he says. In a fashion similar to the early works of James Rosenquist and Andy Warhol, Kearns's works strive for moral consciousness. And with a title like "Zero-Sum," it is evident that the cultural state Kearns portrays is that of a win-lose scenario.
"While the need to connect and build relationships was as important as ever, the political culture was pushing us ever further into self-involved isolation," explains Kearns. This isolation is manifested in Kearns's lonely compositions which depict only a single subject each. In comparison to Kearns's prior work, delightfully cacophonous and often teeming with multiple characters in vivid color, these new, mostly pastel, paintings and drawings, like the modern life, feel empty and void of connection.
The artist explains "The use of the 1950's cartoons reflect my desire to locate personal / psychological dialogues that read as implications of long-term societal shifts away from the values of an earlier moment in America's cultural history. The quieting of the compositions along with the pastel colors suggest memories of things gone by. The image becomes a dream-like echo of personal and societal loss."
"Sharing community, forming empathy for the other, was receding into the past," says Kearns. "I tried to capture something of that loss in these paintings."
Free
Presented by MODERNISM INC..
Now through March 7, 2026, Tuesday - Saturday, 10:00am - 5:30pm
Modernism is pleased to present "Jerry KEARNS: Zero-Sum." The artist's 11th solo exhibition with the gallery features six paintings and nine drawings, in which Kearns employs the ever-present vocabulary of popular culture, film, TV, cartoons, advertising, photographs, etc., to describe our reality where mediated information has replaced direct experience.
In a vein the artist dubs "Psychological Pop," Kearns samples and repurposes the visual vocabulary which defines perception and shapes contemporary mythology. "I aim for psychological history paintings reflecting the time and place where we live," he says. In a fashion similar to the early works of James Rosenquist and Andy Warhol, Kearns's works strive for moral consciousness. And with a title like "Zero-Sum," it is evident that the cultural state Kearns portrays is that of a win-lose scenario.
"While the need to connect and build relationships was as important as ever, the political culture was pushing us ever further into self-involved isolation," explains Kearns. This isolation is manifested in Kearns's lonely compositions which depict only a single subject each. In comparison to Kearns's prior work, delightfully cacophonous and often teeming with multiple characters in vivid color, these new, mostly pastel, paintings and drawings, like the modern life, feel empty and void of connection.
The artist explains "The use of the 1950's cartoons reflect my desire to locate personal / psychological dialogues that read as implications of long-term societal shifts away from the values of an earlier moment in America's cultural history. The quieting of the compositions along with the pastel colors suggest memories of things gone by. The image becomes a dream-like echo of personal and societal loss."
"Sharing community, forming empathy for the other, was receding into the past," says Kearns. "I tried to capture something of that loss in these paintings."
Free
Presented by MODERNISM INC..
read more
Modernism is pleased to present "Jerry KEARNS: Zero-Sum." The artist's 11th solo exhibition with the gallery features six paintings and nine drawings, in which Kearns employs the ever-present vocabulary of popular culture, film, TV, cartoons, advertising, photographs, etc., to describe our reality where mediated information has replaced direct experience.
In a vein the artist dubs "Psychological Pop," Kearns samples and repurposes the visual vocabulary which defines perception and shapes contemporary mythology. "I aim for psychological history paintings reflecting the time and place where we live," he says. In a fashion similar to the early works of James Rosenquist and Andy Warhol, Kearns's works strive for moral consciousness. And with a title like "Zero-Sum," it is evident that the cultural state Kearns portrays is that of a win-lose scenario.
"While the need to connect and build relationships was as important as ever, the political culture was pushing us ever further into self-involved isolation," explains Kearns. This isolation is manifested in Kearns's lonely compositions which depict only a single subject each. In comparison to Kearns's prior work, delightfully cacophonous and often teeming with multiple characters in vivid color, these new, mostly pastel, paintings and drawings, like the modern life, feel empty and void of connection.
The artist explains "The use of the 1950's cartoons reflect my desire to locate personal / psychological dialogues that read as implications of long-term societal shifts away from the values of an earlier moment in America's cultural history. The quieting of the compositions along with the pastel colors suggest memories of things gone by. The image becomes a dream-like echo of personal and societal loss."
"Sharing community, forming empathy for the other, was receding into the past," says Kearns. "I tried to capture something of that loss in these paintings."
Free
Presented by MODERNISM INC..
show less
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