A Hug From The Art World is delighted to present Punch-Drunk Love,
an exhibition of new work by Jamel Robinson.
The exhibition opens on Thursday, January 18th, with a reception from 6-8 pm, and runs through March 2nd.
Punch-Drunk Love is a body of work by multidisciplinary artist Jamel Robinson that began during his inaugural tenure at the Long Meadow Art Residency in The Berkshires of Massachusetts.
Using boxing gloves to make free-form gestures on the surface of un-stretched and stretched canvas and watercolor paper, Robinson channeled his memory of artist Ushio Shinohara, whom he discovered in the 2013 documentary, Cutie and the Boxer, and sought to use boxing as a cathartic means of coping with the insurmountable grief that surrounds a tragic loss.
Using only black and white paint for “rounds” of boxing that form into abstraction, Robinson addresses the stark nature of grief and the gray-area of peace that he finds through the creative process.
These free-form paintings are a celebration of life in the midst of death and the grief it leaves in its wake; they are a testament to light and its promise to always penetrate the darkness; they are an ode to the calm that finds its way to the midst of the storm; they are his fight for peace in the midst of pain.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Jamel Robinson is an autodidactic interdisciplinary artist, working in the mediums of painting, drawing, sculpture, performance, and the written word. His work ponders itself alongside maker and audience while serving as a timestamp of the experiences shaping his life and creative practice.
Robinson’s work has gained him notoriety at home and abroad, and his works are included in several of the world’s leading private collections.
Jamel has recently been celebrated by the New York Times and CBS News for his “Beauty from Ashes,” a solo exhibition and teaching artist residency at the Hudson River Museum in New York. The body of work was curated in response to “African American Art in the 20th Century,” the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s traveling exhibition of select permanent works which opened at the Hudson River Museum at the start of Robinson’s residency in the fall of 2021. Punch-Drunk Love follows his 2022 solo exhibition with A Hug From The Art World, The SCREAM Paintings.
Robinson lives and works in Harlem, New York City where he was born and raised.