Jennifer is a model Stephen Wright is cloning into paintings. He titles the paintings using the abbreviation of Jen. Because after all clones are abbreviations of an original. Jen is nude in this series. She comes in different shapes and sizes and her desire to fit inside a laundry basket or to stare up at the stars makes us think that she may be from a distant galaxy or maybe she is the future of the nude.

By placing Jen in convoluted positions I wonder if Stephen is the one trying to fit into the current art scene and it’s obsession with the Nude.

Stephen’s previous series was painting flea market findings. The subjects in the paintings resemble what items may be found as props in a science fiction flick. California and the film industry’s influence prevails in Stephen Wright’s paintings whether they be items from the flea market or nudes stuck in a basket.

In another series of paintings there are holes. They are your common hole found in sinks and bathtubs. Except that again there is something a kilter about these holes. There is not one but an army of them. An invasion of holes. So many holes to sink yourself into or to be lifted into outer space. He paints them black against the white tub. It is implied that there may have been a nude in the tub taking a bath but the water is now gone. So is the nude and all that is left are the holes. An emptiness. A desert. What to make of it. These same holes later morph into the backdrop in the stars that Jen the clone is pictured in. These holes become the protagonists in Stephen Wright’s narrative paintings because you can not just show a hole to a viewer and not have them make up their own story about the artwork. He has left the hole to speak for itself just as we try to find the answers in the stars.

And so it is with the Jen clones. In each painting the prototypes of the original Jen are trying to fit into society. When the clones are not trying to fit in, they are searching for answers looking into the distance from that abyss that made them what they are and where they came from.

Stephen does his best to differentiate each clone. Some are meatier than others and he paints the rolls of skin and compressed breasts squeezing into the laundry basket. He paints weight. With his brushstrokes and his knowledge of the human body he brings across the weight society has placed on the perfect body. Stephen paints markings on some of the clones. The markings are not tattoos. They belong to the physical qualities of the nude clones as if they had been created that way or something may have gone wrong in the assembly line. By differentiating each clone with their own markings, color and weight, Stephen Wright brings humanity to the series. Each clone has made it’s way through the hole and becomes a unique individual.

This is also why Stephen Wright’s paintings do not fit in with the rest where every Tom, Dick and Sally paints the nude because they can. He paints the nude as he painted the holes and the flea market findings because he feels for society. He feels the pain of wanting desperately to find the way out of the entrapment that we place ourselves in and by doing so he has freed himself from the dictates of what is expected from the figurative art world.