Jeff Fleming | Ghosts
Opening Reception: Friday, January 10 | 5:00 – 8:00
Ghosts inhabit this body of work. Family photographs from the early 1960s serve as source material for the imagery. Phantoms of the past appear in grainy, sometimes indistinct images, weaving in and out of focus. Some encounters are known only from conversations or stories, and the photographs are reminders that the events happened, and the people lived. The process of working on a chalkboard, with its ability to show the ghost images of previous attempts at composition and accuracy, adds a tangible dimension to these memories. – Jeff Fleming
Jeff Fleming paints delightful (yet haunting) works, 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 (or green) and white works hover, demanding an intimacy with the viewer in order to truly notice and further 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.
Image: “Kite Flying” | 2024 | Pastel pencil, India ink, white charcoal, and gesso on canvas | 48” x 48”