Andrew Jensdotter’s new work is a concerted meditation on time. SeventyThreePointTwo, the exhibition’s title, reveals the average age of an American man’s life expectancy. The show is an ode to the passage of time, mortality, and the desire to appreciate life’s quiet moments. It consists of a mixture of small paintings and framed Polaroids, pivoting around the question, “What if this is the last time I...?” For example, “What if this is the last sandwich I eat...the last kiss I give my child...the last flower I see...the last painting I make composed with yellow?”
The questions Jensdotter tacitly poses often encourage slow-looking and contemplative thinking. Absorbing the particular in his creations can lead to beholding the infinite. For instance, a series of simple Polaroids taken successively of a deteriorated road sign near Jensdotter’s studio outside of Taos, New Mexico, is called Bump. The individual photos are framed as a single composition in a grid format. The abraded sign, endemic to a particular place, warns of trouble ahead, an approaching “bump in the road” -- perhaps an existential nod to life’s inevitable obstacles.