On the cover: Jeremy Mann

Of the five artists we’re featuring here in our coverage of our 200th issue, Jeremy Mann has the earliest cover, from Issue 52 in February 2010. At first glance, the work doesn’t have some of the artist’s modern hallmarks—the raw application of paint, the abstracted forms on the painting’s edges and his cool color palette—and yet the work still reverberates in Mann’s style.Jeremy Mann in his studio in 2009.

“In an attempt to better know myself from a greater objective scale I had recently watched a slideshow of every painting I’ve ever done in chronological order—the ones that survived, were photographed, and poorly at first too,” he says. “I think it was a 30-minute video and each piece was on only for a second; the video of drawings is over an hour. It appears to myself to still be ‘me’ in each piece, just with a growing refinement, but somehow I feel like something is still not right; somewhere beneath it all a different me is trying to say something else, a vocabulary stifled by ineptitude of medium. It is like watching a plant grow in timelapse, but the fascination of the growth itself overshadows the plant. It could be a noxious weed, it’s still fascinating. So I guess I’m just older, more refined, and farther from my roots perhaps. Or in the throes of a midlife crisis, still fascinating and good to learn from.”

Asked about what it feels like to have his work on the cover of a magazine, something he’s had many opportunities to experience, Mann relates: “It’s frightening. It’s like someone exposed my deep-rooted connection to the CIA, Collective of Illegitimate Artists, and now thousands of people are going to be judging my artwork instead of a close respected group of us who used to hang out at the galleries and bars discussing art in person with passion. In comparison to today’s world for artists the effect stymies the mind. Exposed at first, humbled and honored second—stress, doubt later. I do best when in solitary confinement. Yet, with that sort of mind-blowing support from a national magazine, it helps me remember to lace up my shoes and embrace the path I find myself on with maturity and responsibility despite still being a child inside.”L’Anima si Lamenta, oil on panel, 2021, 30 x 40"

Mann is still very active, with shows all around the country and even the world. We recently caught up with him in Bluff, Utah, where he was on a painting retreat with Maxwell Alexander Gallery. He churns out work at a steady clip, and not just paintings, but also drawings, photography, films and animation. Each work, no matter the medium, is important to him.Jeremy Mann in his studio in 2021.

“The stories behind the facades of paintings will remain one of the mysteries which make them eternal. Seeing my own paintings reminds me of every moment lived around them, so to explain that would require a long and babbling autobiography best kept for my 80s when I’ve grown up a bit and can blame most of it on senility, should I care to write one before I die that is,” he says. “You want a good one about that last cover? I had ‘finished’ it, stared at it for about 10 minutes in tense silence, then beat it into the ground with a windshield washer. A cleansing before its procession to the garbage bin. I picked it back up and questioned why I keep preventing myself from creating how I wish, and really began to question what artists are painting for these days. Made two more depressing marks, then went about my day, and that’s how it stayed. When I was told it was not only on your cover, but also printed 20 feet tall on the walls outside the esteemed EVOKE Contemporary, I believed the CIA was calling again about my dirty breaches. I smile and nod, even more honored and uncertain.” —