Cecily Brown
Gagosian Gallery is pleased to present recent paintings by Cecily Brown, her first solo exhibition in New York since 2008.
Brown鈥檚 most recent paintings treat the subject of the nude ensemble, revealing an attitude that draws equivocally from the genre of history painting and pop culture. By freeing her subjects and inspirations from their original contexts, Brown subverts the role of narrative in the construction of genre and points to the slippage inherent in quoting from source. In her visible grapple with formal concerns, she crowds each canvas with stylistically diverse anonymous figures鈥攕ome loosely suggested, others identifiably expressive鈥攚ho fulfill her explicit aim of conveying figurative imagery in a just-elusive shorthand, as directly and vigorously as possible.
In fleshy yet chromatically sober paintings, such as a monumentally scaled untitled work of 2012, clusters of diverse and individuated nudes crowd the scene, glaring and grimacing, as if from some unnamed purgatory. At the base of the painting, the odd limb is visible, the body to which it belongs buried beneath the confrontational energies of the group. Fragmented figures and faces, reduced to complexions or expressions, dissolve into kaleidoscopic concentrations of grey, purple, and sienna with a sudden accent of electric teal or orange. Eyelashes, teeth, hair, the curve of a breast or a shoulder blade may stand out from contrasting brushwork, or separate into momentary tonal distillations amidst the compositional chaos. Brimming with the intensity of human presence, these paintings play out Brown's persistent fascination with the tension between bold painterly gesture and figurative content.
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Gagosian Gallery is pleased to present recent paintings by Cecily Brown, her first solo exhibition in New York since 2008.
Brown鈥檚 most recent paintings treat the subject of the nude ensemble, revealing an attitude that draws equivocally from the genre of history painting and pop culture. By freeing her subjects and inspirations from their original contexts, Brown subverts the role of narrative in the construction of genre and points to the slippage inherent in quoting from source. In her visible grapple with formal concerns, she crowds each canvas with stylistically diverse anonymous figures鈥攕ome loosely suggested, others identifiably expressive鈥攚ho fulfill her explicit aim of conveying figurative imagery in a just-elusive shorthand, as directly and vigorously as possible.
In fleshy yet chromatically sober paintings, such as a monumentally scaled untitled work of 2012, clusters of diverse and individuated nudes crowd the scene, glaring and grimacing, as if from some unnamed purgatory. At the base of the painting, the odd limb is visible, the body to which it belongs buried beneath the confrontational energies of the group. Fragmented figures and faces, reduced to complexions or expressions, dissolve into kaleidoscopic concentrations of grey, purple, and sienna with a sudden accent of electric teal or orange. Eyelashes, teeth, hair, the curve of a breast or a shoulder blade may stand out from contrasting brushwork, or separate into momentary tonal distillations amidst the compositional chaos. Brimming with the intensity of human presence, these paintings play out Brown's persistent fascination with the tension between bold painterly gesture and figurative content.
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