Auxier Kline is pleased to present Pleasure Principle, a show of 13 new paintings by Jeremy Sorese. This is the artist’s first solo exhibition. 

Sorese’s work explores the idea of desperation, a quality often derided as negative, that can expose an individual’s inability to push beyond their current circumstance. However, as we live through this moment in history with dwindling resources to meet our collective needs and an ever-growing expectation of instant gratification, there is no avoiding the embarrassment that comes with having wants which can only be fulfilled by others. These paintings aim to put that interpersonal reality into empathic relief.

The exhibition title, Pleasure Principle, refers to the term coined by Sigmund Freud to characterize the tendency of people to seek pleasure and avoid pain. Within us all, there is a constant reshuffling of priorities as we try to manifest what we want from our lives. Yet the question often remains of how to find fulfillment living through these uncertain and precarious times. The path towards stability and a sense of purpose become complicated when necessities often feel like impossible luxuries. Pleasure is complex, and the satisfaction of getting what you want can easily be conflated with the ache of seeking something out. What gnaws at us to be attained is simply the driving force of our lives, and the attainment of what we desire does not guarantee a solution. Janet Jackson’s pop hit, which shares a name with Freud’s concept, states this conundrum plainly with the lyrics:

 “It’s true you want to build your life on guarantees…Where’d you get the idea of material possession?”

 Who would we be if it wasn’t for that obsessive and needy part of ourselves? What is desperation if not the all-consuming wish for more from the future, despite knowing the complications and disappointments inherent in that want?

 In these paintings, Sorese depicts the human form as a reservoir of need giving and receiving in equal turn. Several paintings portray individuals with needs they struggle to meet alone. In Vessel, a body, lost in thought, longs to feel less aware of their internal selves after surgery. In Flush, someone’s urgent desire to consume a drink causes the figure’s nose to unintentionally dip into the glass, displacing some of the precious liquid. Other works depict figures whose wants, often conflicting, can only be assuaged by others. In Coupe, a figure’s desire to feel needed takes on sexual absurdity as they are used to decant champagne as it is poured down their face. In Dresser, a figure’s inability to clothe their body after an injury translates into feeling discouraged and isolated despite the closeness of someone’s help. In Tizzy, two figures are seated together on the edge of a shared bed. One man, overwhelmed by anguish, is oblivious to his partner’s desolate expression—each lost, together.

 Although the arrangements of figures aren’t aspirational, like the imposing monuments to virility seen from antiquity up through contemporary trends in figuration, they are intended to be viewed with kindness. Each painting is an act of preserving an honest feeling, be it one of frustration or fulfillment, patiently letting that figure crave what they want but may never possess. There is grace in this act, in appreciating the reality of someone’s life behind the smooth veneer of who they appear to be, recognizing all that we share in our lifetimes spent yearning for more. 

Jeremy Sorese (b. 1988, Berlin, Germany) is an artist based in Brooklyn. He holds a BFA in Sequential Art from the Savannah College of Art and Design and has published two graphic novels: Curveball (2015) and The Short While (2021). From 2012 through 2013, he was resident at La Maison des Auteurs, a comics specific residency program in Angoulême, France. Having moved away from earning part of his living as an illustrator and cartoonist within the past few years, Sorese has moved toward painting to prioritize the personal within his work.