05/01/2026
In 1984, in a commission for the Volvo Headquarters in Sweden, Jennifer Bartlett introduced three-dimensional elements into her work for the first time, a development that would shape much of her output throughout the decade. In her process, the painting always came first, with sculptural counterparts emerging as direct replications of her pictorial language. In ‘Sea Wall’ (1985), she draws upon recurring motifs—including the house and the boat—that appear within the painted composition while simultaneously projecting beyond the picture plane and into three-dimensional space.
Cinematic and sprawling, this work draws upon Bartlett’s fascination with the ocean and its duplicitous mysteries—endlessness and immediacy, transparency and darkness, arrival and departure. Though she lived and worked in New York City for most of her life, Bartlett was born and grew up in Long Beach, CA at the same time construction of the Long Beach Breakwater went underway. In this expansive installation, Bartlett invites viewers to walk between sculptures rendered in varying media before a close encounter with the 369-inch oil painting in the background. It is then that we realize the precarity of our position, as the gallery space becomes a walloping ocean with the viewer standing in its depths. Throughout her career, she remained fascinated by skewed realities, presenting scenes interlaced with contradictions and layered moods. In ‘Sea Wall,’ we see Bartlett at full force, pushing her conceptual, painterly, and sculptural mind beyond the edges.
‘Sea Wall’ returns to the second-floor gallery on the occasion of ‘Jennifer Bartlett: American Classic,’ on view through May 30.
Oil on canvases; structural elements: 5 boats, 5 houses, 4 step stones, 4 sea wall elements, 1 seahorse chair
Canvases: 84 x 369 inches; structures: varying dimensions
