Jonathan Ehrenberg
USA
Based in New York, Ehrenberg received a BA from Brown University – where he now teaches – as well as an MFA from Yale. His work has been included in exhibitions at venues including MoMA PS1, New York; LAXART, Los Angeles; David Castillo, Miami; Futura Center, Prague; and Espacio Minimo, Madrid. He has been reviewed in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Art in America, and The L Magazine.
Represented by Nicelle Beauchene Gallery in New York, Ehrenberg has participated in residencies at LMCC, Harvestworks; the Islip Museum, Skowhegan; the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown; and Triangle, New York.
In his videos, rough materials like plaster, cloth, and cardboard are layered to create a textured environment that resembles a three-dimensional, habitable painting. While the sets, characters, and plots feel surreal and stylized, they also have a sense of emotional truth. The goal is to bring viewers into an alternate world where logic and physical laws are suspended while depictions of emotion become vivid and honest. As a result, the story feels real to the viewer in the way that a fantastic dream can feel real on a visceral level.
‘My projects are often inspired by literary sources that portray a character's uneasy relationship to a world in flux. In my videos, involuntary transformations and spatial distortions disorient the protagonists--the natural world in these pieces functions as both an idyllic setting, and as a wild site of the unknown.
I’ve always been interested in the intersection of folklore and history in Scotland, in the fantastic rising from the past, in the link between tales of fairies living in cairns and the real Bronze Age people buried there. I intend to make a series of short videos that explore the strange gap between these two worlds and the subconscious threads that connect them.’
