New Jersey-based artist Nancy Depew’s depictions of nature are luxurious and manicured. Her oil paintings combine traditional elements of portraiture, still life and landscape, fusing these genres into harmonious compositions filled with eye candy. Her most recent figure painting series features women reclining into beds of fresh flowers, comfortably resting their heads and bodies on their soft petals as if finding relief at long last. Though Depew’s paintings prioritize craftsmanship (nearly every detail appears to be rendered with a sharp focus), she says that her process is a gestural and intuitive exploration of the figure.
Houston-based artist Ana Marietta paints and draws animals with exaggerated human features to create sympathy for her subjects. Looking at a raven with wide eyes glassy with tears, or a frowning pelican dimpled with warts, one feels the animal's deep sorrow. The creatures appear to look outward however, suggesting their sadness comes from the environment, as opposed to any personal ailments directly. Their anthropomorphic deformities hint at something unnatural, an effect explained only by human behavior and intervention.
There's something intrinsically horrifying about seeing the familiar mutated, spliced and perverted. 