Jake Sheiner - Scenes from my Quarantine

The 'Scenes From My Quarantine' series began in March 2020, when a mandatory statewide stay-at-home order was issued in California. By painting mundane yet honest scenes from his everyday life, Sheiner attempts to document the shared lockdown experience. The series consists of 40 paintings, 21 of which are included in this show. Any moment of the day is a potential painting subject for Sheiner, though some moments present themselves more clearly than others.

The paintings are snapshots of the artist’s life, most often painted from his direct point of view, but filtered through the lens of his phone camera. Sheiner uses images taken from his immediate surroundings as a jumping off point for his work. Sheiner’s paintings attempt to convey humor and tenderness, but also succeed in exposing the vulnerabilities, feelings of isolation and melancholy of those living alone during the pandemic.

Sheiner works directly onto the surface from the phone image, which he uses as a compositional sketch. Each painting is completed in one sitting, giving an urgency to what may often be a banal moment in time. Upon completion of a painting, Sheiner posts an image of the work to his Instagram account. In doing so, he completes a sort of loop from real world to digital image, to physical painting and back to digital again. Sheiner shares his own experiences through paintings in real time.