This page from Drawing Papers 124 features Untitled
(Hospital), an oil on canvas painting made by Jennifer Bartlett in 2012.
The Drawing Center’s 2016 exhibition “Jennifer
Bartlett: Hospital”was the first museum exhibition
of a series of ten pastels made in 2012. The works are based on a series of
photographs that Bartlett took during an extended stay at Greenberg Pavilion at
New York-Presbyterian Hospital / Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York.
With Hospital, Bartlett continues her long-established practice of
close observation and responsiveness to her environment, and mine the liminal
experience of “hospital time,” characterized by long periods of
waiting interspersed with highly organized routines of treatment, medication,
and physical therapy. This combination of boredom and activity often heightens
one’s awareness of details, and Bartlett exploits these sensations to create
images that eschew sentimentality while remaining indelibly poignant.
The Drawing Papers are a series of publications
documenting The Drawing Center’s exhibitions and public programs and providing
a forum for the study of drawing.
