Opulence

“If the Abstract Expressionists sought to vanquish the focal points of traditional painting through a balanced fragmentation of the picture plane, Saccoccio does the opposite. Rather than rely on Cubist precedent and correlate the figure to the ground, she doubles down on her targeted point of interest, the center, and then does all she can to demolish it via a wholesale effusion of solvents.” Thomas Micchelli on Jackie Saccoccio, September 19, 2015.

For many of the younger Abstract Mannerists there isn’t really a need to confront the traditions of Late American Modernism. Those traditions are simply part of the landscape for painting. Jackie Saccoccio’s work uses that era and pushes it forward into the 21st Century. She works with color field and AbEx techniques and styles while reaching back to underused classic genres like portraiture. What she creates is a complex and lyrical kind of abstraction. 

“I love these naughty issues of beauty, opulence and transcendence. Like the young painters that you mention, I went through great pains to eliminate traces of beauty in my painting, so as not to obfuscate the ‘serious’ nature of my work, or so I thought… The result was that I sent all the wrong messages, and the response was disheartening. Now, as I’m more accepting of this beauty thing seeping into the paintings, it’s not only not an issue, but viewers are more likely to bring up transcendence or ephemeral references, which has been my aim. The odd thing is, in those early years, I was making paintings with literal references to these. Now, in these portraits, with their mass and weight, they elicit ideas about impermanence.” Jackie Saccoccio in conversation with Ridley Howard, May 3 2013.