Since encountering Jule Korneffel’s acrylic and natural pigment works during her 2018 thesis show at Hunter, I’ve observed a deepening gravitas in her art through exhibitions at Spencer Brownstone Gallery in 2019 and 2022, and a 2025 group show I curated featuring her pieces. Korneffel selects her color palette for each painting based on both research and intuition, emphasizing the paint’s viscosity and its potential to create varied marks. Her work intriguingly balances austerity with lushness and restraint with expression, as her spontaneous marks carry a touch of whimsy and vulnerability.
Korneffel’s artistic exploration has grown more nuanced, particularly her interest in the transition of light from bright to dim. Her latest exhibition, ‘In Search of Lost Light,’ at Spencer Brownstone Gallery, running until May 2, showcases this evolution. Initially aiming to paint in blues, she shifted to grays, influenced by a winter spent in northeastern Germany reading Marcel Proust, who, like Korneffel, found inspiration in Claude Monet. The region’s winter sky, a dense fog with a fleeting sun, mirrors the dusky gray hues prominent in her work.
The exhibition features seven paintings, varying in size from 20 x 18 inches (~51 x 56 cm) to 80 x 96 inches (~2 x 2.4 m), created between 2023 and 2024. Outside, a large blue square titled ‘New York City Rising’ is painted on a white wall, revealing traces of previous layers’ colors. Observing the piece, one can see the colors shift with natural light, reminiscent of James Turrell’s exploration of light as a dynamic entity.
‘Aurora and her Siblings (Morgenröte)’ (2024) draws from Roman mythology, depicting Aurora, the dawn goddess, against a matte dusty rose ground. Two orbs, one gray and the other dusty blue-violet, represent the interplay of morning light. The work compresses themes from mythology, Renaissance art, and color dynamics, capturing the fleeting moment of dawn. The title’s parenthetical ‘Morgenröte’ means ‘morning red’ in German, adding to the painting’s depth.
‘Withered Summer (Proust) / Giotto’s San Francis before restoration’ (2023) reflects on historical art and personal memories. Its gray tones and greenish orbs nod to Giotto’s frescoes in Florence and Assisi before restoration, evoking Proust’s theme of ‘withered summer.’ The paintings convey a melancholic passage of time, acknowledging the inevitability of darkness while celebrating light’s daily renewal.
Jule Korneffel: In Search of Lost Light is on display at Spencer Brownstone Gallery (70-A Suffolk Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan) until May 2. The exhibition is presented by the gallery.
