Paragons of Techno-Primitivism
Jeremiah Chechik: The Primitives, Affiliated Artists Initiatives, May 30 to December 31, 2024
History has lessons to teach us. Again and again we return to it, seeing in its cast of characters the moral quandaries that are our best teachers. Jeremiah Chechik’s recent series of mixed media works, The Primitives, presents a veritable who’s who of historical figures reinvented alongside imaginative stock characters, to play out a dramatic narrative that combines technical tactics with a feel for the atmospheric and psychological timbre of works from the 15th century in pre-Renaissance Bruges. Chechik uses technology to emphasize the advanced techniques that characterized painting in the age of van Eyck and Memling. The world of 15th century courtly culture was to become a major aspect of Renaissance painting. The so-called Primitives to whom Chechik alludes in his title were unaffiliated and self-taught painters whose specific accomplishments led them to be more generally accepted. The breadth of their talent was what drew him to them, as well as their independence and distance from the power structure and popular acclaim of historically recognized Renaissance painters. A sentiment for frailty and a Christian softness was embedded in their paintings. It was more about feeling than flash, and it has stood the test of time. Chechik employs a similar dramaturgy, which places them at the service of the viewer’s emotions; while their very intentional quality injects complexity into the process of looking. History, it's said, was made by those who showed up. In these newfangled mixed media works, thanks to Jeremiah Chechik, they are made palpably present and superbly real.
The world Chechik creates has a cinematic character. He not only depicts their innate facial and gestural mannerisms, but employs intense backgrounds that aid us in characterizing in the context of scenes and their respective roles, many taken directly from Renaissance history. These figures are lodestones in the greater landscape of characters Chechik presents. Yet their appearance is consistent with characters bereft of a historical connection. Chechik actively questions the nature of celebrity that has been applied to such figures. All the portrayals included in Primitives carry a similar psychological weight.
The names of well known figures seem substantial because of how they appear in history books, but are really very common. The irony of a name fills this work, and others like it, with querulous justifications. History surely was filled with persons whose value was not captured poetically or documented otherwise. They are depicted here at will, with a great respect for the mise-en-scene that follows, creating narrative value. On the other side of the illustrative gyre are figures with recognizable names who may actually be the same as they are called. Desiderius Erasmus (2024) is one. His reputation within his own era has not diminished. Here he is presented as a young man, strong and resolute in stature, both poised and exuding an interior vulnerability, we can glimpse complexities in his measured gaze. He holds one small book in his hands, presumably a Bible, pressing it to his chest as his gaze extends outward. The object of his affection is a thought known only to himself. He is portrayed in a three-quarter perspective, which underscores his vulnerability, and makes him seem more introspective. Leo X (2024) is a portrait of a king or a papal figure, with the lacelike crown specific to kings of Flanders. He is an imposing figure, filling up the image, his large head portrayed in direct perspective, giving him the aura of authority. Michele di Bruno (2024) is a figure portrayed with a much more detailed background, the image of a library, walls covered in bound volumes bespeaking the knowledge of ages. He is depicted as small in stature with an intense gaze boring into the countenance of the viewer. He holds in one hand an open book, and in the other raised above the book, a large red rose. These symbols are powerful yet discrete references to honesty and devotion. With a familiar last name but no comprehension of his character beyond the image of him, we rely upon how it makes us feel. There is a mystery at the heart of all truth.
Chechik’s use of AI technology as a tool to enable the creation of his images introduces a complexity into the creative process. The statistical model of the systems used here evolves the images in 'sculptural process’ that fuses language, based on traditional painterly styles of the period and descriptives; the technique further blends sequential images with layers of words. Chechik develops them beyond this, with tools like Photoshop, Topaz, Luminar, and Magnific, by which elements are enhanced and replaced to arrive at the final base image. Then the work is printed with UV inks. The process Chechik has developed fuses new digital technology, new printing techniques, and traditional canvases varnished by hand. Repetitive elements in each print–such as similar facial characteristics, dramatic poses as placements within each image, and the tonal quality of backgrounds–are established by the computational relationship between seed numbers and weights (indicated by a mathematical number) in the initial or subsequent prompts but are under the artist's control to a large though not exclusive part. The relationship between the tool and the artist is how these images evolve. It can be compared to how these painters originally used the technology of weaving paint and glaze with new ways of seeing and perspective.
Taken as a whole, this exhibition could be understood as a depiction of the entire demimonde of courtly society and its associated spectacle in a particular period of European history. What may not seem readily apparent is the political dynamic behind both courtly or society portraiture or the aegis of historical narratives as a sense of painting’s importance—the presentation of specific events out of history, myth, and religion, as equal to the writing of journalistic exposes and photo-journalistic reportage in today’s media—a depicted attempt to establish both aesthetic and authoritative bona fides while at the same time becoming the primary storytellers of their own age. The value of retrospection in Chechik’s case is that ironic and bathetic narratives can be transformed into significant sympathetic allegories. History has a way of forming its own conclusions. Chechik has with this new oeuvre made considerable contributions to both.
