Carlye Packer is pleased to present Usufruct, the first major solo exhibition of Los Angeles-based painter Jacob Fenton. The exhibition opens Saturday, September 28th, 6-9PM and will be on view through October 26th, at 3201 La Cienega Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90034.

In Usufruct, Fenton explores memory and the constructed self within the accelerating age of instantaneous media. He intentionally sources images with a deep hold on the Western imagination, detaching them from their original context to critique post-truth reality, fractured identity, and the rise of hyper-individuality—particularly among those raised in the internet age. Through a technique that blurs atmospheric and figural elements nearly beyond recognition, Fenton provides viewers with minimal reference to place, period, or time.

The paintings in Usufruct initially appear to span diverse visual registers, rooted in their original photographic sources. Works like the painting of the Sonderkommando resistance photographs retain the raw, unfiltered composition characteristic of historical documents bearing witness to atrocity. In contrast, the painting of Groucho Marx running into a mirror from "Duck Soup" captures an unmistakably filmic quality. Similarly, the depictions of Nazi officers observing a sculpture, and the phrenological measurement of a German baby’s head in 1932, possess the essence of historical documentation. These source images, widely disseminated on social media and often seen in questionable YouTube videos, are presented side-by-side in the exhibition. They are displayed alongside Fenton’s reinterpretations of Antonin Artaud reimagined as the Joker sourced from Reddit and JFK’s autopsy from an online documentary.

The works in Usufruct emerge from topics, actions, or processes that evoke a primordial sense of thrill or awe, aiming to disarm and disrupt familiar patterns of perception. Fenton's paintings subvert common modes of seeing—whether via the iPhone, the 24-hour news cycle, or the Hollywood machine. The sensory disorientation and reconditioning present in his work invite viewers to situate these paintings within a specific historical and social context.