PROVINCETOWN ART ASSOCIATION AND MUSEUM 2026

“... drawing is part of a continuum of making and thinking and of invention and completion.”

—The Primacy of Drawing, Deanna Petherbridge

Drawing is often the first step in the making process—of painters, sculptors, architects, designers—it is visual thinking. It has historically taken a back seat to the “finished” work. With this exhibition, Jackie Reeves combines multiple technical approaches to drawing on and with a variety of materials resulting in powerful finished works of importance. The results reveal the process of experimentation, curiosity, and the examination of her personal search. She is simultaneously recording and examining her life, her time and ours.

There are many artists gifted with the ease of facility when it comes to drawing, whether it be a still life, landscape, or the human figure. Yet facility alone is not enough in creating a body of compelling and illuminating work. Reeves has coupled a sharp, diligent, and dedicated observation of her life and our time, with an intelligent 

and emotive technical ease that is pleasurable and powerful in its execution. She is fearless and exploratory in her mark-making and usage of collage and mixed media. Her employment of abstraction—passages, marks, color—creates mystery within the recognizable realm of the figure.

“Larger than life” not only refers to the scale of these works but to the themes that are intertwined with the life of a creative human being, woman, mother, citizen, and artist in this time.

The large 90” x 54” work, Oath, presents a ghostlike form of a woman striding forward holding a brush like a torch. Is its purpose to illuminate? Is it the artist, Lady Liberty, or everywoman? Is she vanishing or coming into view/prominence/being? The hand is finely rendered, and the brush/light is held in a firm grip while the right foot comes forward, slightly awkward. Is this a hesitant step? Will she come forward, out of this blue-tinged mist? Will we? What will she show us? Will she lead us?”

Oath: a ritualistic declaration that one will speak the truth, keep a promise, remain faithful…

—Bert Yarborough, Curator