What if the female characters we’ve come to know from the old masters – the lounging odalisques, the giggling nymphs, the chorus that whispers in the background – present more than a voyeuristic visual feast? What if these characters embody a flickering of female power at work?
My large-scale oil paintings pull at the shadows of historical works of art and ask what dormant new narratives might be found in the female subjects that inhabit them. What invisible histories might be embedded or encoded? Is it possible to restore autonomy to these models, to whatever nuances of expression might have been contained in their poses? Maybe it cannot be “restored” – they are long gone – but perhaps it can be conceived afresh.
My paintings are an act of distillation, boiling off the extravagance and iconography of these original sources in pursuit of more delicate, less definite, but perhaps truer relationships.
More info: angelafraleigh.com
Carried By Voices
Oil, 23kt gold leaf and synthetic resin on canvas, 66" x 90", 2014
Something Has Already Started To Live In You That Will Live Longer Than The Sun
Oil, acrylic, gouache and synthetic resin on canvas, 66" x 90", 2014
Ghosts In The Sunlight
Oil and 23kt gold leaf on canvas, 90" x 66", 2014
Though They Crowded Between, And Usurped The Kiss Of My Mouth, Their Breath Was Your Gift, Their Beauty, Your Life
Oil and synthetic resin on linen, 72” x 84”, 2014
You’ll See Me From A Trillion Miles Away
Oil and synthetic resin on canvas, 48”x 60”, 2014
The Language Of Stones
Oil and synthetic resin on canvas, 36” x 24”, 2014
We Held Hands Beneath The Dirt
Oil on canvas over panel, 14” x 11”, 2014
Morning Hush
Oil on canvas over panel 14” x 11” 2014
Winter Reigns
Oil on canvas over panel 14” x 11” 2014
Installation View Of Ghosts In The Sunlight, Inman Gallery, Houston, TX
