These new paintings by Jessie Makinson are absolutely wild. From large-scale soiree tableaux to small-gathering social vignettes and intimate, symbolism-rich character portraits, her singular swirl of posh post-male society is both feral and fancy, cheeky and courtly, surreal and sophisticated. It’s tempting to get lost in their narratives; in fact, it’s impossible not to be seduced by the sinuous self-possession and lightly animalistic personalities of the women, the mannerism of their bodies, the weight of the atmosphere, the eccentricity of the architecture, and the unexplained ubiquity of seeded pretzels. But once you’re done solving these and other puzzles, there is also the matter of Makinson’s very fine and wide range of techniques —from convincing pointillism to whispers of translucent layering, to painterly, visibly worked quasi-impasto and patient, over-the-top passages of pattern and decoration.

The eponymous centerpiece of the exhibition is Something Vexes Thee? (all works 2020), a diptych, six-and-a-half by nearly 11 feet, which opens like a window onto an entire world. The pictorial space is neatly divided into interior, exterior and distant landscape components, with lawn and gravel pathways tipped toward the viewer like an invitation. She uses ingenious visual devices to slide the eye around the image—filigrees of robes, outstretched legs, curling tails (oh, yes, some of the women have long tails), stabs of sunlight, or hands offering snacks. The variation between settings gives Makinson a chance to flex all her painting muscles, so that the grounds, structures, furnishings, lavish textiles, sunlit far-off vistas, and most importantly the cliques and cohorts of the remarkable minglers is each rendered in a unique visual style. It’s amazing that the forces of gravity and light hold together across such a panoply, but in this and in each of the works, the scene possesses a sort of internal logic, a dream logic, in which it all makes perfect sense at the time.

Jessie Makinson. Better Days and Kinder Seas (2020). Photo by Paul Salveson, courtesy of the Artist, François Ghebalyand Lyles and King.

In the context of the optical overstimulation, the proliferation of techniques helps mitigate the surrealism, giving another set of entry points into the works—form, style, surface and matter. In works like Better Days and Kinder Seas, Your Leafish Light, and Don’t Bite Anybody Else, smaller groups of women get more privacy. Whether clothed in fabrics, tattoos, or just the auras of their own adorned flesh, these women are comfortable in their skin, including the long tails, the pattern of wildcat fur, the feathers and flowers, the peaked elf ears. Their languid posture is not, or not always, sexual; it’s more that a rich sensuality defines the ambience, appropriate to the otherworldliness of the figures. Partly private and partly performative, the entirety of each room and story is exquisitely designed to arouse curiosity and desire—right down to the juicy peaches and the ostrich feather motif of the velvety drapes.