Jim Watt Explores the Complexity of Red in Marcus and Red, a New Painting Exhibition at Jim Kempner Fine Art in Chelsea
Jim Kempner Fine Art presents Marcus and Red, an exhibition of new oil paintings by Jim Watt. On view September 26 through October 18, 2026, at 501 West 23rd Street (entrance on 10th Avenue) in Chelsea, the show opens with a reception on Saturday, September 26, from 6 to 8 PM, with the artist in attendance. The exhibition takes its title and provocation from the character Marcus Rothko in John Logan’s play RED, whose furious interrogation of a single word — “scarlet? crimson? plum-mulberry-magenta-burgundy-salmon-carine-carnelian-coral?” — frames Watt’s own inquiry into color, perception, and the limits of language.
The new body of work continues Watt’s practice of what he calls “an alternative relationship to difference” — paintings that stage conversations between opposites and find productive tension in the space between thought and instinct. Working in oil on canvas in large formats, Watt uses red not as a single resolved hue but as a field of perpetual becoming, where the distinctions between tones accumulate into something that resists easy naming. The series builds on the concerns of prior bodies of work — the Rome series (2022–23), the jazz-inflected Miles in Paris paintings (2024), and the architectural Overture and To A Groove series (2025) — in which the act of painting functions as spatial and material research conducted outside the constraints of architectural practice.
Jim Watt is an American artist and architect based in Asbury Park, New Jersey. He holds a Master of Architecture from Princeton University, where he studied under Michael Graves and Enrique Miralles, both of whom emphasized painting and drawing as inseparable from architectural thinking. Watt has a body of built work spanning North America, and his paintings are held in private collections across North America and Europe. His work has been featured in Architectural Digest, Dwell Magazine, and The New York Times. In his own words: “My work plays with what happens when we invite opposites to the party and join wholeheartedly in the conversations that result.”
In asking what red actually is, Marcus and Red opens a question that turns out to be about the limits of naming itself — and about what painting can do that language cannot.
Show: Marcus and Red
Artist: Jim Watt
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 26, 2026, 6 – 8 PM (artist in attendance)
On View: September 26 – October 18, 2026
Venue: Jim Kempner Fine Art, 501 West 23rd Street (entrance on 10th Avenue), New York, NY 10011
Hours: Tuesday – Friday, 10 AM – 6 PM; Saturday, 10 AM – 6 PM; Sunday, 12 – 5 PM
Website: jimkempnerfineart.com
Instagram: @jimkempnerfineart
Contact: info@jimkempner.com / (212) 206-6872
