JG Art Advisory presents “Damsels not in Distress” a group show featuring four young female artists from New York

“A play on words, a Damsel in distress is a young woman in trouble (with the implication that the woman needs to be rescued, as by a prince in a fairy tale). These artists are very much the opposite, they are independent and strong women with their own unique voice and artistic practice. Although you may see some similarities- both Wendy and Anne create somewhat abstract works and Kelsey and Caroline create more figurative works.” – Jill Gerstenblatt, curator and advisor

Each female artists has a distinct and indelible voice: Anne Vieux explores the digital and material worlds through bold abstractions, while Caroline Larsen paints lush landscapes with tactile tension. Wendy White uses deconstructed denim to create sociopolitical statements and Kelsey Schwetz references constructed environments to elicit out-of-body simulations. To see how these powerful voices blend together, join us at the opening reception! 

Caroline Larsen

Caroline’s paintings are enticingly decadent and visually lush. Larsen marries her painted scenes of floral arrangements and still lives, mountains, and suburban Californian pools with her distinctive method of piping out oil paint. The result is a sculptural relief where texture, color, and imagery merge together to create abstract figurations of still life and landscape scenes. Larsen plays with ways of weaving, outlining, and filling colors together within the pictoral plane. Colors are blocked together, ombréed, layered, and braided, creating fields of vivid forms that fade in and out of recognition, heightening a tension between figurative reality and abstract fantasy. View more work here

Kelsey Shwetz

Kelseys’s paintings describe constructed environments; she uses source reference material from the artificial nature of conservatories, botanical gardens, and scientific dioramas. Relating visually to sci-fi and computer simulations, the off-kilter and saturated landscapes hold space for banal routines, daily rituals or else non-action: blank reels of tape. Her aim is to create a psychological space for the viewer that recalls a simulation and an out of body experience, at once relatable and estranged, one which is equally open to both intense identification and ironic distance. View more work here

Anne Vieux

Anne’s paintings and sculptures explore the optics of the computer screen and the implications of light on abstraction, through digital reproductions of material surfaces. Images of holographic and translucent paper are captured and altered digitally via layers of warping and repetition, then printed on to microfiber fabric. The paintings are notable for their ultra-saturated images in bright, fractured hues of purples, blues, pinks, reds and greens. Lines of airbrushed acrylic paint are added. Viewers often cannot tell what parts she has painted and what have been printed and that is partially the point; in printing onto a tactile material and altering the piece by hand with a digital mindset, the artist seeks to blur the tenacious privileging of hand-done over computer-composed. View more work here

Wendy White

Wendy’s paintings employ language and aesthetics often related to male-dominated areas, from professional sports and muscle car culture to Abstract Expressionism. The artist uses iconic branding, gestural mark making, and materials such as denim; she highlights topics of masculinity while producing metaphors that address our current social and political moment. The Oil Slicks series is a meditation on the American dream versus the flawed mythos of happiness, optimism and nostalgia. In this iteration of her Jeans series, White juxtaposes the tactile and synthetic in brightly hued canvases framed in collaged fragments of denim jeans, resulting in a psychedelic clash of marks and splatters. Hearkening back to velvet paintings of the 1960s, with the addition of timeless denim, these works also lend a knowing wink to current times. View more work here

Art Works Inquiries:

Jill Gerstenblatt | JG Art Advisory
917.428.1941   [email protected]
@jgartadvisory