Painter Jen Mann’s new show is a twisty-turny spiral into an almost absurd amount of meta reflection—paintings of other paintings, of art galleries, mirrors, fake magazine covers, film stills of films that don’t exist, self-portraits of self-portraits—but deep down in her hyper-colored world of self-satire and fourth-wall-breaking imagery is a mirror that is aimed not at Mann, but the viewer. 
Narcissus, oil on canvas, 60 x 48"
“I’ve not found myself in my paintings, and I’m not entirely interested in finding myself. I’m mostly interested in the concept of self,” the Toronto-based painter says. “So it comes down to not who I, Jen Mann, am, but what is our culture’s fascination with the self and how can I frame that in a way that’s a happy kind of illusion? I’m always continuously searching for meaning, not so much who we are, but what it means to be alive. I could make a narrative on Instagram but if I look at it closely enough do I really see who I am in it? It’s almost dissociative. It’s hard to know where life ends and a weird simulation begins.”
The Kiss, oil on canvas, 60 x 80"The show, which is now open at Gallery Jones in Vancouver, Canada, is titled Metonymy, which is a literary term for a word meant to invoke another idea, but with a linked lineage between the two concepts. The common example used for metonymy is “suits” used for any kind of business executive. Executives wear suits, and “suits” is a casual word to describe them. It’s an elliptical sort of substitution, which is what brought Mann to the word. For her new show she’s objectifying herself to the point she becomes an object, and then the objects also relate back to her and her attempt to rationalize the concept of “self”—like the word itself, her motives are elliptical and create an interesting loop of ideas. 
Cover Girl - Nylon Germany, oil on canvas, 48 x 36"The show includes many self-portraits, which Mann is at ease painting. “It doesn’t feel like me, to be honest. Think of all the people you see in your day…your partner, your dog, your coworkers. My own face seems sort of foreign compared to everyone else. I feel like just a character in my life,” she says. Not only is she painting herself, but she’s also painting herself nude and in intimate and revealing moments. “My work is reflective of myself. I’m really open and honest in person. I do hide behind a lot of humor. On first glance it looks very serious, but it’s often self-deprecating. For my magazine cover paintings, I just thought it would be funny to do that and make all the titles into jokes.”
Jen Mann in her Toronto studio.
Works in the show include The Kiss, which is a painting of a painting hanging in a gallery. Adding another level to the work, the painting within The Kiss is a film still of a movie that doesn’t exist except as a movie trailer. The trailers themselves, with titles such as Loneliness & Desire and Love & Romance, will be part of the show as well. The trailers are almost esoteric parodies of HBO’s Girls, but they wink at the audience to help tell Mann’s story about the concept of self. Additionally, she’s also made handcrafted dolls in her likeness, including using her own hair, to punctuate themes of objectification and branding—“I’m quite literally selling myself,” Mann says. “And that’s the point.”
Metonymy will remain on view through December 7. —
Gallery Jones 1-258 East First Avenue • Vancouver, BC V5T 1A6 • (604) 714-2216 • www.galleryjones.com
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