Charlotte Jackson Fine Art is proud to present an exhibition of new works by two artists, Max Cole and Constance DeJong, Black Magic. The exhibition will run from October 16 through November 16. An Opening Reception will be held on Friday, October 16 from 5-7 p.m. A Gallery Talk with the artists will be held on Saturday, October 17 from 2:30-3:30 p.m. The gallery is located in the Railyard Arts District at 554 South Guadalupe Street.

Sometimes a work of art forces itself on you—color or composition boldly pounding itself into your consciousness. But sometimes art is more subtle—it asks you to come closer, to engage with it, to look and listen. This is the kind of art that requires you to become something more so that you are capable of fully being with it. This is the quality of the work included in the two woman exhibition, Black Magic. Max Cole and Constance DeJong, both masters with loose affiliation to the Minimalist Art movement, create works of quiet intensity and extreme precision.

The juxtaposition of the works of these two artists is one of both harmonies and contrasts. The color palette is limited to white, black, grayscale, the natural glow of copper and casting of light. Max Cole’s new work, in a square format, painstakingly creates a woven texture of lines and tones which suggest the geometry of the Greek Cross. This format and geometry is a radical departure for Cole, who has been working in a horizontal format since the 1970’s. It is homage to Malevich, who 100 years ago in 1915, painted a black square on a square canvas with a white background, referencing the Greek Cross. He called this the “zero of form.” Cole’s work follows in the tradition established by Malevich and Kandinsky, among others, of including the mystical in abstraction. Each canvas is painstakingly composed of horizontal and vertical lines and bands. The verticals consist of fine rows of hand-drawn lines. Layer upon layer of paint creates a raised, eggshell smooth surface. The resulting textures create gentle rhythms which the eye, and then, slowly, the whole body of the viewer, begin to pulse with. The longer one spends quietly contemplating a piece by Max Cole, the deeper one sinks into the lines, between the color tones, until finally the painting itself seems to open up, breathe, and the viewer is brought to a still point of balance between the painting and what lies beyond it.

The work which Constance DeJong brings to this exhibition holds the same space of attention. Square housings are made to precise specifications (they cannot be even a millimeter off), inside of which are mounted a piece of shaped copper. The shapes vary, curves, arcs, ellipses. In the Grid pieces, DeJong uses a folded rectangular piece of copper which she drills with miniscule #78 bit holes in a fine, precise grid pattern. When light, whether ambient or gallery lighting, hits these pieces, the copper reflects, it draws light up onto the housing. The different shapes and the quality of light create unique ethereal patterns. In the case of the Grids a faint light-trace of the pinhole patterns is cast, and between the folded copper, the light is captured and appears to float in infinitesimal globes.

In these pieces we find a rare intersection of chance and design. Like Cole, DeJong has honed down her artwork to a few well-chosen elements. She works with extreme rigor to formulate precise ratios which create the boundaries of her work. However, she honors the properties of her materials, allowing the copper to retain is natural surface and glow. This element brings chance into her work—with the reactions of light against the unique grain of the copper being beyond proscription. The results are works of art with a visceral, sensual effect. While Cole’s work quiets the mind, DeJong’s art works its way deeply into the body of the viewer, beyond mind, where it kindles a spark of energy and memory, building it to a inner-fire which mimics the glow of copper itself.

Moving from the cool stillness of Max Cole’s work to the generative warmth of Constance DeJong’s and back, Black Magic becomes more than an exhibition – it’s a journey. At the center of what makes art is mystery. The enigma of how a demanding piece requiring the highest order of rigor and precision can appear deceptively simple. The paradox of how a work so seemingly quiet can, slowly, evoke volumes of thought, energy, and emotion. The art work of Max Cole and Constance DeJong rises up from this fertile ground.