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Jane Dickson. Photo: Dondre Stuetley. Courtesy of the artist and Karma.

Jane Dickson, “Promised Land”

Karma, September 9–October 28, 2023

Once described as “the painter of American Darkness” by friend and fellow artist Nan Goldin, Jane Dickson has lived and worked in New York since 1977. Inspired by the gritty milieu of the city in that period, her figurative paintings offer a voyeuristic glimpse into the views and lives of the urban underbelly.

Shortly after moving to New York, Dickson began working on the Spectacolor sign—the first animated-light board in Times Square. She went on to curate and participate in “Messages to the Public,” a text-based series of activations to which Jenny Holzer, Keith Haring, and David Hammons also contributed. For her exhibition “Promised Land” at Karma, Dickson symbolically returns to this style of text-based works. Using her own archive of nighttime and nightlife photography from the past 40 years, Dickson has produced a new body of textual works by self-appropriating, cropping, and reframing her past work. Even remixed, they still evoke an atmosphere of “American Darkness,” adapted for a new era.