“I want people to understand that it’s not a passive act to consume the image of another person’s unclothed body, which is why I like to make them feel more naked.”
—Jenna Gribbon

Jenna Gribbon’s Gushing crevicescape, painted in 2021, serves as a striking exploration of intimacy, desire, and the intricacies of the gaze, artfully intertwining these themes with both technical prowess and conceptual depth. First showcased in Light Holding at MASSIMODECARLO – Gribbon’s inaugural solo exhibition with the London gallery – this monumental painting, measuring approximately two by one and a half metres, depicts the artist’s partner, musician Mackenzie Scott. The scene provocatively challenges viewers to reconsider their agency in the act of looking, navigating the complex dynamics between the viewer, the subject, and the artist.

 

The painting is part of Gribbon’s Scape series, where larger-than-life depictions of faux-intimate moments blend real and imagined worlds. The scale and energetic brushstrokes render Scott statuesque and imposing, granting her a sense of agency absent in Gribbon’s smaller works; her gaze almost dares the viewer to engage in their intimacy. In Gushing crevicescape, Gribbon allows the seams of production to remain visible, choreographing the scene in a way that reveals the artifice behind the intimacy. The composite title reflects this, merging physical and metaphysical elements drawn from Gribbon’s life. The language of the title hints at both bodily and landscape-like qualities: 'crevice' evokes intimacy and vulnerability, while 'scape' suggests an expansive natural landscape. Scott’s positioning within this monumental space transforms her into something both familiar and untouchable, inviting the viewer to explore her as a physical and emotional landscape. As Gribbon notes, her large-scale works should feel 'monumental in some way. They should dwarf the viewer a little bit. Even though they’re nude, I don’t think of them as sexual. They’re more like landscapes or entanglements.'ⁱ This blending of body and terrain in Gushing crevicescape creates a tension between closeness and distance, between knowing and mystery. Gribbon’s fluid brushstrokes further enhance this duality, with soft gradations on Scott’s skin contrasting with the vigorous, dynamic strokes of cascading water, emphasising the balance between control and spontaneity that defines her work.

“Jenna Gribbon's depictions of overlapping figures take on a monumentality in their close frames, approximating undulating limbs to landscapes while subverting the traditions of portraiture.” 
—Will Hine

In the foreground of the painting, a second pair of legs is intertwined with Scott’s, a subtle yet significant element that suggests the presence of another person – likely Gribbon herself. This visual cue invites the viewer to question their own role in the scene: who is looking at whom? Is Scott’s gaze directed at the viewer, or is it aimed at the person whose legs are entwined with hers? As the exhibition text from Light Holding notes, 'the presence of the artist’s body in the foreground pulls the viewer in to occupy her position intertwined with Scott.'ⁱⁱ This ambiguity highlights the complex triangular relationship between artist, subject, and viewer, forcing us to consider the ethics and dynamics of looking. In Gushing crevicescape, Gribbon reminds us that looking is far from passive – it is an active, sometimes uncomfortable act of interrogation.
“The tendency of many artists throughout history to use women decoratively in their paintings as passive objects or to use the female body to depict the personification of virtues and vices is one of the central concerns of the work.”
—Jenna GribbonGribbon’s examination of the gaze places her within a long lineage of artists who have painted the female nude, from Rubens to Lucian Freud. However, her approach is distinct. In contrast to the traditional male gaze that often objectifies the female subject, Gribbon’s work complicates the notion of desire and intimacy. As Laura Mulvey famously observed in her essay on the male gaze, the act of looking has historically been split between the active male and the passive female.ⁱⁱⁱ  As a queer female artist portraying her wife, Gribbon disrupts the conventional power dynamics of the gaze, effectively challenging the binary perspective. The nature of the desire in this painting is not questioned – it is accepted as a given. As Gribbon herself explains, 'Do I have some kind of responsibility to not idealise this particular kind of beauty? I just put my focus on the looking at the looking. What we’re all doing is just painting about ourselves. I’m painting the way I’m looking at her.'^iv 
 

This focus on visibility and the pleasure – or displeasure – of looking, a theme that permeates Gribbon’s work, is central to Gushing crevicescape. Light plays a pivotal role, emphasising themes of agency, exposure, and the self-consciousness of being observed. Gribbon choreographs what she calls the 'narrative power of light', using bright, artificial lighting to render her subject slightly uncomfortable, and intensifying the tension between being observed and being exposed.^v She explains, 'I brightly lit my subjects so that they were a little bit uncomfortable and a little bit blinded, to make us – or the viewer – more aware that sometimes being viewed or being the subject can be uncomfortable.'^vi This deliberate discomfort aligns with the painting’s broader exploration of the gaze, placing both the viewer and the subject in vulnerable positions. In the Scape paintings, light does not simply cast its dramatic glow from beyond the canvas but becomes a central element, revealing the process behind the work with a simple clamp light. Whoever holds the light takes on an active role, embodying the gaze itself. In Gushing crevicescape, the clamp light is not directly visible but is powerfully felt. The bright light emanates from the viewer's vantage point, reflecting off Gribbon’s own thighs and grounding us in her point of view. Directed by the artist-as-viewer, the light both illuminates and imposes itself on Scott, who confronts her viewer with a stare, her irritated eyes reinforcing the disquieting sensation of being watched or intruded upon.
“The act of looking—the consensual, two-way scopophilia between artist and muse—and creating agency for the person being watched (and portrayed) are leitmotifs that run throughout Gribbon’s oeuvre.”
—Alison M. GingerasIn Gushing crevicescape, Gribbon blends intimacy with theatricality, transforming the personal into the performative and inviting the viewer into a deeply layered psychological space. The loose, gestural brushwork and textured physicality impart immediacy, while the monumental scale transforms the intimate scene into something profound. By inserting an incongruous, almost scenic backdrop – a waterfall – Gribbon heightens the theatricality, using the painted environment to suggest a highly constructed psychological space. The painting refuses easy interpretation, engaging the viewer’s gaze and delving into the larger history of representation and the ethics of intimacy in contemporary art. Gribbon pushes the boundaries of figuration, using Scott’s body as a landscape that is at once real and imagined, physical and psychological, thus urging exploration of figuration not just as a reflection of reality but as a space for escape and transformation.

 

Collector’s Digest

 

• The Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University is planning a major solo exhibition of Jenna Gribbon’s work, tentatively scheduled for Fall 2026. The planned show will be a comprehensive survey of 25 years of painting.
• Currently, Gribbon has a solo show of new paintings at David Kordansky Gallery in Los Angeles. The exhibition, titled Like Looking in a Mirror, will be on view until the 19th October 2024.
• Gribbon was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, Italy (2022–2023). Recent group exhibitions include Day for Night: New American Realism, Palazzo Barberini, organized by the Aïshti Foundation, Rome (2024); Living Histories: Queer Views and Old Masters, The Frick Collection, New York (2022); I Will Wear You in My Heart of Heart, the FLAG Art Foundation, New York (2021); and Paint, also known as Blood: Women, Affect and Desire in Contemporary Painting, the Warsaw Museum of Modern Art, Poland (2019).
• Her work is included in the permanent collections of institutions such as the Kunstmuseum The Hague, The Netherlands; the Dallas Museum of Art; the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art, Las Vegas, Nevada; the New Orleans Museum of Art, Louisiana; the Kurpfälzisches Museum, Heidelberg, Germany; the Rubell Museum, Miami; and the FLAG Art Foundation, New York.

 

 

ⁱ Jenna Gribbon, quoted in Will Hine, 'In the Studio with Jenna Gribbon', OCULA, January 2020, online.
ⁱⁱ 'Press Release: Light Holding', MASSIMODECARLO, London, 2022, online.
ⁱⁱⁱ Laura Mulvey, 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema', Screen, vol. 16, no. 3, Autumn 1975, pp. 6–18.
^iv Jenna Gribbon, quoted in Allison M. Gingeras, ‘A Very Particular Type of Attention,’ Jenna Gribbon, Berlin, 2021, p. 13.
^v Jenna Gribbon, quoted in Jane O’Sullivan, 'Jenna Gribbon: Look Alive', Vault, May 2022, online. 
^vi Jenna Gribbon, quoted in Will Hine, 'In the Studio with Jenna Gribbon', OCULA, January 2020, online.