Jeff Fleming paints absurdly delightful (yet haunting) works on canvas, using gesso, India ink, white charcoal, and pencil. The effect is that a chalkboard has been used over and over again, not due to error but to history, to new iterative versions of a story. Fleming says his work is “storytelling of memories; it’s drawings and the recording of drawing.” Palimpsestic in their conceptual nature, these soft gray and white works hover, demanding an intimacy with the viewer in order to notice and recognize.
Fleming earned his MFA at Pratt Institute, has shown nationally, and held positions at The Metro Opera Association and the Smithsonian Institute, before moving to Des Moines to work at the Des Moines Art Center, where he remained until 2023. Recently returned to his studio to draw and paint, Fleming resides in Des Moines.
