Royal Jarmon “Fire Escaping”

Royal Jarmon Fire Escaping Exhibition Catalogue The Hole April 2018 Soft cover, 15 pages   Published by Anteism   The Hole is proud to present “Fire Escaping”, the debut solo show here by emerging artist Royal Jarmon. In our black-bricked rear gallery, Jarmon exhibits eight new fire escape paintings, hung like windows opening out onto New York fire escapes. “Fire Escaping” brings together one of Jarmon’s favourite themes in his work, the “still life” of the junk that accumulates out there. Across the city and the LES especially, old steel monsters screwed to the sides of tenement buildings are a defining characteristic of the landscape. Part emergency exit, part makeshift patio, these beasts were required to clamp onto buildings from the late 1800s up until 1968. Having lived on Ludlow street and covered my fire escape with ash trays, dead plants, clothes, beer bottles and truly unimaginably random objects, I can attest to their tendency to retain debris. It might have perhaps (very il