When the self-taught, LA-based artist Vanessa Prager began exhibiting her scenic narrative paintings in 2008, they captured an aesthetic that fell somewhere between Mark Ryden’s ethereal dreamscapes and the hard realism of Weimar Berlin’s New Objectivity painting. While they garnered some acclaim for Prager, who is the younger sister of photographer Alex Prager, they weren’t working for her at a core level.
‘I got tired of trying to make everything perfect and the work didn’t leave enough room for the story I wanted to show through,’ says Prager, who was growing frustrated in a romantic relationship a few years ago when she began painting over all of the old works in her downtown studio. ‘There was a sense back then that if the paintings weren’t perfect, they were throwaways, and I didn’t like that. I started I started piling on more and more layers on my paintings and it just felt nice.’
What emerged was a body of heavily-impastoed portraits, whose rivulets of oil teased out new perspectives, entry points, and abstractions into what were previously flat, fairly anodyne images. The decision to go thick has been paying off. In addition to solo shows in San Francisco (at Jenkins Johnson Gallery) and Los Angeles (Richard Heller Gallery), Prager’s thick stylings are now on display at The Hole, in New York, where she just opened her latest solo effort, Voyeur.
‘It’s like when you browse the internet and have all this in-flow of information through Amazon and Google searches or Tinder profiles and you form a whole persona based on tiny bits of information,’ says Prager. ‘I think it’s human nature to have one bit of information and fill in everything you don’t know, just automatically.’
At the Hole, that plays out in a series of portraits — from 8x8-foot diptychs to 8x8-inch boards, which begin as palettes and end up as monstrous characters such as Pablo’s Bones — that offer a window onto the composite catalogue of (real, imagined, and digitized) faces that have come under Prager’s purview over the last year. By abstracting her characters more than she ever has, Prager is stripping away the possibility of lazy voyeuristic reads.
‘When you see these on Instagram, you see the faces clearly, especially the eight-footers, but when you see them in real life, you do not see these faces so the point is that there’s a million little pieces making up the whole,’ she says. ‘It’s not supposed to be super clear, they’re blending into the background but they are the background.’
Think of them as painterly versions of the wallpaper scene in When a Stranger Calls — only far less creepy.
‘I got tired of trying to make everything perfect and the work didn’t leave enough room for the story I wanted to show through,’ says Prager, who was growing frustrated in a romantic relationship a few years ago when she began painting over all of the old works in her downtown studio. Pictured: Faded
What emerged was a body of heavily-impastoed portraits, whose rivulets of oil teased out new perspectives, entry points, and abstractions into what were previously flat, fairly anodyne images. Pictured: Bubblegum
‘It’s like when you browse the internet and have all this in-flow of information through Amazon and Google searches or Tinder profiles and you form a whole persona based on tiny bits of information,’ says Prager. Pictured: Blooming Through The Brush
The series of portraits ranges from 8x8-foot diptychs to 8x8-inch boards that offer a window onto the composite catalogue of (real, imagined, and digitized) faces that have come under Prager’s purview over the last year. Pictured: Glory
By abstracting her characters more than she ever has, Prager is stripping away the possibility of lazy voyeuristic reads. Pictured: Fred
‘When you see these on Instagram, you see the faces clearly, especially the eight-footers, but when you see them in real life, you do not see these faces so the point is that there’s a million little pieces making up the whole,’ she says. ‘It’s not supposed to be super clear, they’re blending into the background but they are the background.’ Pictured: After Midnight
INFORMATION
’Voyeur’ by Vanessa Prager is now on view until 29 Februay. For more details, visit The Hole’s website
Images courtesy of the artist and The Hole
ADDRESS
The Hole
312 Bowery
New York, New York
-
How Arne Jacobsen built a whole design universeEverything you need to know about the Danish designer who brought modernism to the mainstream – and created some of the most recognisable buildings and objects of the 20th century
-
From art to fashion, and back again: Jonathan Schofield’s figurative work is back in styleAfter graduating from London’s Royal College of Art, Jonathan Schofield began a career as a creative director at Stella McCartney. Now, he has returned to his first love, painting
-
Ten statement-making belts to add drama to any outfitSupersized, stacked-up, embellished: add a flourish with these ten statement-making belts, from Miu Miu’s jewellery-like chains to a piece of runway history from Sarah Burton’s Givenchy debut
-
Curtains up, Kid Harpoon rethinks the sound of Broadway production ‘Art’He’s crafted hits with Harry Styles and Miley Cyrus; now songwriter and producer Kid Harpoon (aka Tom Hull) tells us about composing the music for the new, all-star Broadway revival of Yasmina Reza’s play ‘Art’
-
Richard Prince recontextualises archival advertisements in TexasThe artist unites his ‘Posters’ – based on ads for everything from cat pictures to nudes – at Hetzler, Marfa
-
Out of office: the Wallpaper* editors’ picks of the weekAnother week, another flurry of events, opening and excursions showcasing the best of culture and entertainment at home and abroad. Catch our editors at Scandi festivals, iconic jazz clubs, and running the length of Manhattan…
-
The best Ruth Asawa exhibition is actually on the streets of San FranciscoThe artist, now the subject of a major retrospective at SFMOMA, designed many public sculptures scattered across the Bay Area – you just have to know where to look
-
Orlando Museum of Art wants to showcase more Latin American and Hispanic artists. Do you fit the bill?The Florida gallery calls for for Hispanic and Latin American artists to submit their work for an ongoing exhibition
-
The spread of Butter: the Black-owned art fair where artists see all the profitsThe Indianapolis-based art fair is known for bringing Black art to the forefront. As it ventures out of state to make its Los Angeles debut, we speak with founders Mali and Alan Bacon to find out more
-
Steve Martin wants you to visit The Frick CollectionThe actor has appeared in a video promoting New York’s newly renovated art museum
-
Architect Erin Besler is reframing the American tradition of barn raisingAt Art Omi sculpture and architecture park, NY, Besler turns barn raising into an inclusive project that challenges conventional notions of architecture
