Bundle finds Hanna Pettyjohn returning to large scale portraits in close-up. Unlike her previous works in this format, the faces are unobscured by mask or mist. Rather, they are enveloped by disparate cuts of cloth and clothing. Each sideways glance is equal parts majestic and mundane. Every facial imperfection or stray hair is accompanied by a fold or flap of random fabric.

Perhaps echoing the symmetry of Year of Glad, each portrait was restaged with the same materials, sans “subject.” The detail of each texture and pattern depicts a sense of comfort; faded tones give way to warmer hues. The climate changes. Absent is the clean sparseness of earlier reflections on America, replaced by a frenetic clutter that more aptly recalls the crowded chaos of Manila.

Whether object or action, the title evokes the life of a moment, full of fleeting sensations, imperceptible in their abundance. An investigation not of the ephemeral past but the material present, each swath gives its own tactile testimony to appearance and function. In Bundle, Hanna Pettyjohn captures the creature comforts that compose a physical truth, simple and concise and, thanks to these paintings, now lasting.

-Matthew Jones

Image: © Hanna Pettyjohn, Silverlens Galleries