Jeremy Blake was a pioneering artist whose work was a unique synthesis of abstract painting, digital and video imagery. His untimely, tragic death by suicide earlier this year is a tremendous loss to the art world. A major retrospective exhibit of his art begins today at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C. From the Corcoran Gallery Web site:

Jeremy Blake’s (1971–2007) lush digital videos combine representational and abstract imagery to create visual narratives that are dreamy, historical, and richly psychological. Renowned for his shimmering, hallucinogenic “moving paintings,” which loop seamlessly without beginning or end, Blake was influenced as much by Hollywood culture as by the history of modernism. His coolly expressive digital and painted abstractions are slick, non-linear ruminations on topics as wide-ranging as reality television, vernacular architecture, mid-century Colorfield painting, the megamall, and the superchurch.

Blake’s cinematic video portraits are the final development in a career that consistently challenged distinctions between painting, photography, and computer and video art. In his last works, Blake turned to portraiture, plumbing the life, imagination, and aesthetic vision of three extraordinary artists. He honored his subjects’ achievements through an innovative new form that is its own contribution to the history of art.

Jeremy Blake with his companion, writer and filmmaker, Theresa Duncan, whose death by suicide preceded his.

An image from “Berkshire Fangs,” 2001

Video: “Beck’s Round the Bend”