JAY DEFEO

Much has been written about the labor, diligence, and emotional toil that went into the creation of Jay DeFeo's monumental work The Rose - and justifiably so. Layered with nearly two thousand pounds of oil paint, the work consumed eight years of DeFeo's life and left her creatively dormant for several years following its completion. The intensity of her process is captured in the massive scale, scarred surface, and material physicality of this single work.

But it is the pieces that followed The Rose that reveal a complexity and subtlety in DeFeo's practice, one that emphasizes thinking and seeing through the process of making. Spanning almost twenty years, Hosfelt Gallery's 2011 exhibition presents a selection of work that is aesthetically cohesive, yet wildly diverse in form and media. Seen together, the pieces bring to light DeFeo's creative process - a non-linear, intricately interrelated dialogue of complex visual and conceptual underpinnings.

- excerpt from the DEFEO catalogue essay "Seeing Through Making" by Stephanie Hanor

To purchase a catalogue, please contact the gallery.

All images © 2012 The Jay DeFeo Trust/Artists Rights Society/ARS, New York

Untitled (Tripod series), 1976


Untitled, 1979


Untitled, 1974


Untitled (for B.C.), 1973


Untitled (Shoetree series), 1977


Untitled (Jewelry Series), 1976


White Knight, 1977


Untitled (Jewelry series), 1977


Untitled, 1973


Untitled (Bruce Conner angel collage)