Catch and Release. Jonathan Tignor

‘Catch and Release’ is a body of paintings that respond in varying degrees to the titular concept, which refers to the process of returning a fish to water after its capture. My practice is broadly invested in the idea of image as a force, rather than a composition of its constituent forms, which are then malleable to the needs of the image. In this way, ‘Catch and Release’ refers to provisionality within painting. Within their production, the paintings mirror the process of fishing. Once I seize upon an image and begin to render it in paint, the paint acts as a site of resistance, and I can only hold an image for so long before it must be released. Elsewise, the image may be subsumed by the paint, or vice-versa. There is always this risk of violence. Like deep-sea fish, do paintings undergo a trauma of pressure change when we pull them from the realms of the mind into the physicality of paint? The contents of these works feature an interest in the imagery and narratives of a nostalgia rooted in Americana, as well as questions of where nostalgia bumps up against fantasy and myth. Beyond fishing, the paintings take a wide look at themes regarding what is lost in capture and gained in release.