Jake Longstreth: California Landscapes | Max Hetzler
The title of Jake Longstreth’s current exhibition at Max Hetzler is as clear and descriptive as the work on show. These are California Landscapes, painted from the state the artist lives and works. Dry, open spaces filled with trees, bushes, and topped with clear blue skies.
In Longstreth’s compositions, the foliage surrounds pristine-looking man-made structures: a NASA laboratory, the bright blue flank of an Amazon Prime truck, a mirrored-glass building reflecting the sky with a single car out front. Several tennis courts.
‘Agoura’ (2024)
Longstreth’s oil-painted colour fields are crisp and bright. Light shapes everything. The hard, flat sunlight mutes colour and erases extraneous detail. Against this, shadows fall deep and sharp. The effect is more formal than atmospheric. There doesn’t seem to be a wisp of breeze, ever.
These paintings are as entirely unopinionated as the show’s title. The elements — natural and man-made — don’t feel portentous or moody: they’re simply part of the landscape. The scenes are still and depopulated, but this stillness doesn’t seem eerie. They’re just… there.
‘Vermont Canyon’ (2024)
The artist’s use of oil paint reflects this unopinionated, even passive approach. The surfaces are smooth, with little texture or gesture. Colours appear dry and slightly faded, as if bleached by years in the sun.
Longstreth’s work recalls David Hockney’s early California period in its directness and clarity. It also brings to mind his contemporaries Hilary Pecis (another Californian, though one more interested in the scuzzy and down-at-heel) and Brian Alfred.
‘Chavez Ravine’ (2024)
There’s no narrative here, no symbolism to unpack. The word the artist uses to describe tennis courts — a repeated motif — is “benign”. It describes his landscapes in general, too.
When faced with such benignity, forming a critical opinion of the work - good, bad, or anything other than something - seems besides the point. Instead, we can simply enjoy the view.
Jake Longstreth: California Landscapes is at Max Hetzler (London). 24 April – 08 June 2025