Diverse City, acrylic on canvas

Today’s artist, Jeffrey Newman, is a painter whose art portfolio is filled with frenetic, paint-splattered abstract images that I find to be at once dark and playful.

My Feelings Embarrass Me, mixed media on paper

Jeffrey’s works range from densely packed canvases that are entirely coated in paint, to those he has left almost completely white, with lines of dripped paint crossing the surface. Some of these works could be easily interpreted as homage to the work of Jackson Pollock, but Jeffrey sets himself apart in his use of varying brush techniques and chaotic colour, as well as his occasional employment of figure and even text.

Untitled 5.1, mixed media on paper

Jeffrey’s use of text is particularly interesting. Like strange messages scrawled on the walls of some abandoned building, the words and sentences seem almost to be fragments of a longer text, leaving me wondering if there is some hidden meaning in them.