Jarrett Key: from the ground, up
Exhibition Dates: March 10 – April 23, 2022
39 White Street, Tribeca
Did you know that Black people fly?
1969 presents from the ground, up, Jarrett Key’s first solo exhibition with the gallery. Inspired by Black American folktales and oral stories from Key’s childhood in Alabama, these oil works on panel, frescos and monotypes weave together to reimagine Black freedom and liberation.
In Key’s works, Black people are so free, gravity cannot even keep them down. Black love, leisure and joy fill these imagined natural landscapes, as members of Key’s biological and chosen family are caught witnessing these moments of flight. Even rabbits, who seem to follow these figures from scene to scene, are forced to look up, as figures rise into the haint blue.
Haint blue, traditionally the color of crushed indigo leaves, fills the skies and the garments in Key’s paintings. Blue is a color which holds different meanings: in the Renaissance, blue represents peace and tranquility; blue covers ceilings of verandas and porches in the South to keep spirits at bay; and, in many religions the color blue represents death or immortality. Painting in a fresco technique is a nod to the religious iconography of the Renaissance. Even hand gestures, or chironomia, suggest a renewed sense of Black spirituality in Key’s works. We Were Sleeping, depicts the artist in slumber, while Sharina sees Madear flying in the sky. Like a guardian angel, we are viewing the scene from the point of view of the flying figure, looking down at the pair lying below.
There’s a long history of Black people flying in the United States. Virginia Hamilton’s anthology, The People Could Fly, holds the memories and myth of this miraculous ability. Hamilton reminds us that “these tales, like all folktales, belong to all of us. They are part of our American tradition and part of the history of this country.”
Jarrett Key (b. 1990, Seale, AL) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Jarrett grew up in rural Alabama and pursued their fine art practice in New York City after graduating from Brown University in 2013. They received their MFA in painting at the Rhode Island School of Design in 2020. Jarrett is represented by 1969 Gallery in New York, where they will have their first solo exhibition, From the Ground, Up in March 2022. Recent exhibitions include Freedom Dreams, Dorsky Museum of Art, New Paltz, NY; New England Triennial, deCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA; out, co-curated by Jarrett Key and Jon Key, 1969 Gallery, New York, NY; Young, Gifted and Black, The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; This is America, Kunstraum Potsdam, Berlin, Germany; I have an idea!, 1969 Gallery, New York, NY; and Fragmented Bodies II: Fluidity in Form, albertz benda, New York, NY. Their work was also included in Untitled Miami Beach in 2021. They were one of Forbes 30 under 30 for Art and Style 2020. Key’s work is in the collections of the The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection, the Columbus Museum, Brown University, RISD Special Collection, the Schomburg Center, the Museum of Modern Art Library, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art Library, among other institutions.
For info and images, please contact Amanda Barker (amanda@1969gallery.com)
About 1969 Gallery
Founded in September 2016, 1969 is a contemporary art gallery, with two gallery spaces in Manhattan’s Lower East Side and Tribeca neighborhoods. Through solo / group / external exhibitions and art fair presentations, the Gallery has cultivated the careers of its represented artists and a broader community of artists primarily devoted to painting.
Follow 1969 Gallery on Instagram via @1969gallery.
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