Jennifer Coates in conversation with fellow painter EJ Hauser on the occasion of Coates’ exhibtion Carb Load at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA), on view through July 17, 2016.

Coates remarks: “In every painting there’s a moment where the materiality of the paint asserts itself and becomes a sort of magical experience where you’re aware of its physicality as well as its role in supporting pictorial content… I want there to be moments where the materiality of paint pushes up on the surface and is maybe even distasteful. Paint is just a very magical thing – how it can be material and present and thick and gooey but also be atmospheric. Like Turner landscapes, you have these skies that are super encrusted and thick that are often the most ethereal moments in the painting, really. All of the boats and the figures are very incidental and you’re caught in this tidal wave of gooey encrusted paint and yet this solid matter can transcend itself and become light at the same time.”