Andrew Russeth profiles painter Jacqueline Humphries whose work will be on view at the Contemporary Art Center of New Orleans from November 19, 2015 – February 28, 2016.

Russeth writes: "Humphries’s work almost always feels like it could only be made right now, but her newest paintings are blanketed with especially contemporary signs: emoticons. (Another unusual sight in art.) She uses an industrial-grade cutting machine in her studio to punch the little guys into plastic stencils, which she uses to apply symbols onto canvas in dense grids. At a distance, you can’t quite make them out—they look like tiny dots, or maybe some sort of abstract map—but then you get closer and realize what you are looking at: 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 or :-/ :-/ :-/ :-/ :-/ :-/ :-/ :-/ :-/ flying across the picture plane over flat slashes of color."