Jonathan Ehrenberg

We mostly stayed home so we began to run out of things to say that were not about interior life: ruminations, associations, day or night dreams, digital worlds where we lived increasingly inside each other’s designs. We’d already been living this way without noticing, moving seamlessly from zone to zone just by shifting attention—an uncertain form of travel, sometimes unintentional so that you notice only when your car breaks down, or more devolves into an idea that can’t carry you any further.

And there you are: in mathematical space where coordinates form a slice of wall, a door, window, staircase, leading into infinite possible buildings housing possible people.

You become curious. You wander and observe. As you progress time compresses. The storefronts become construction sites, old-timey stores, go out of business, are boarded up, and fall away to dust. Because this landscape is inside your mind, you can go anywhere in it.

You even stop to paint some scenes so as to experience touch in this zone that you created then discovered and are now being created by. And where are you actually? Your hands? Your eyes? Your Self? Scattered and un-whole, you shift and shift and shift attention, traveling and traveling, and trying to find your way.

—Maria Rapoport

Jonathan Ehrenberg’s work has been included in exhibitions at MoMA PS1, SculptureCenter, The Drawing Center, Nicelle Beauchene Gallery (New York), Futura Center (Prague), The B3 Biennial (Frankfurt), Temnikova & Kasela (Tallinn), and Nara Roesler (São Paulo). He received a BA from Brown University, and an MFA from Yale, and residencies include LMCC, Harvestworks, Triangle, Skowhegan, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and Glenfiddich in Scotland. He was born in New York, NY, where he currently lives and works.