The large and quirky portraits of Canadian artist Winnie Truong via Katherine Mulherin caught our eye as we visited Volta, the only fair that exclusively focused on solo shows by the represented artists. This intimacy allowed for a more focused intent to pervade each viewer as they jumped from booth to booth and was especially an affecting choice when facing the looming faces of Truong’s work. The drawings featured heads floating in the disconcerting blankness of white space; carefully rendered hair playing a variety of aggressive yet seductive roles, encasing the faces of her figures as a soft, personal armor or twining around their throats with foreboding. The impressive work is created with pastels and colored pencils on paper, a mastery of optical mixing and a build up of cross hatching to reveal the intriguing forms.
