Extracted from Baroque and Rococo paintings of the masters, figures painted by Angela Fraleigh defy their original intentions and are recontextualized in a less constrained reality. For Fraleigh, the frivolity of these classical scenes was wholly manufactured. In Fraleigh’s paintings, which often mix media, the possibilities are greater in numbers and less worldly in scope.
“Fraleigh’s work lifts these women (and they are almost exclusively women) out of their assigned roles and resettles them in less limited surroundings,” a statement says. “One-time attendants, bathers or symbols of fertility now inhabit abstract fields of color. Swaths of oil paint and screens of gold leaf obscure their bodies. Free of context, of narrative constraints, of salacious bulls and leering satyrs, they are less iconic and more human.”
See more of Fraleigh’s work below.
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