Art Snack: Jack Penny’s Chaotic, Debaucherous Dining Rooms
Paintings that make you want to down an ice cold martini, stat
Snacks are short-form, midweek drops featuring brands I just discovered, shops I stumbled onto, artists I think you’ll love… little odes to the things I find that I’m sending straight over to you.
This week’s Art Snack is English painter Jack Penny and his chaotic, debaucherous works of dining rooms, dinner parties, and the characters within them.
I don’t know much about Jack Penny, but I do know that when a piece of his floats by as I scroll through Instagram, I almost always have to save it. Jack’s work feels like peeking into a hotel ballroom where a wild party is going on, or dipping into a bar just as the hour hits that time of night when everything gets a little sloshier. His work features all the key players you’d find in a dining room—the chef, the waiter, the pianist, the trumpet player, and a whole host of well-dressed characters in various states of absurdity.
Other works of Penny’s feature similar scenes that sit somewhere between order and mania: a picnic about to be interrupted by a bear, a golfer who finds a skeleton in a sand trap, a man on the phone while a woman sleeps in bed behind him… (The title of that one, Actually engaged, really says it all.)
It’s all fun and messy and clever and I hope you like it as much as I do.
Follow Jack Penny on Instagram for news about upcoming shows and to see more of his work. (Jack, please come to LA!) And while Jack’s work goes for a pretty penny (lol), you can grab a poster from his most recent exhibition for 20 euro here.
x
Ali
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Love Jack Penny. His work strikes the perfect balance of whimsical and absurd while still being a joy to look at.
Wow, I love his work so much! Thank you for sharing!