Art Hound

Jennie Ottinger has a solo show, Due By, at Johansson Projects in Oakland in which she crafts a new visual experience of the Classics. Even without the full context of the show (which the quote below provides), Jennie’s paintings grab you and don’t let go. There is something so honest and human about her work – the crude and sometimes uglier side of people, peppered with a heavy dose of wit. She is one of my favorite contemporary artists.

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In Due By, Jennie Ottinger crafts a canonical library stripped down to the barely-there essentials. There is a haunting affect to Ottinger’s collection of newfangled classics; perhaps it is the quiet tick tock of our own mortality, urging us to read the greats before it is too late. To help us with our timely mission, the books’ insides are cut out and replaced with far more entertaining summaries. Her humorous and brusque adaptations of the stories themselves let readers accomplish the once impossible mission of ‘getting’ War and Peace in a whopping five minutes flat… – Johansson Projects

Scene from To Kill A Mockingbird

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Scene from Death of a Salesman

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Scene from Farewell to Arms