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Jamian Juliano-Villani’s Dark Humor Returns With ‘Let’s Kill Nicole’

Jamian Juliano-Villani, known for stirring acrylic paintings packed with dark humor and sprawling references, offers new works in a show at Massimo De Carlo London titled "Let's Kill Nicole." She offers both new paintings and sculptures in the display, which runs through Sept. 21. Juliano-Villani's work is known for pulling in a variety of familiar imagery from fashion, illustration, and other industries, with conversations emerging over what constitutes referencing versus appropriation. “Everything is a reference,” she’s insisted.

Jamian Juliano-Villani, known for stirring acrylic paintings packed with dark humor and sprawling references, offers new works in a show at Massimo De Carlo London titled “Let’s Kill Nicole.” She offers both new paintings and sculptures in the display, which runs through Sept. 21. Juliano-Villani’s work is known for pulling in a variety of familiar imagery from fashion, illustration, and other industries, with conversations emerging over what constitutes referencing versus appropriation. “Everything is a reference,” she’s insisted.

On the below work, in particular: “Overtaci, a deer-cum-human figure, finds its origin from the obsessive work of a Danish outsider artist, Ovartaci. Ovartaci spent majority of her life as a patient mainly hidden in the Risskov Psychiatric Hospital in Aarhus, Denmark. Juliano-Villani reimagines the artist’s muse as a teenage American lacrosse player framed by a parents’ camera lens. The stale obsessive humanoid is frozen in activity, with the athletic shorts rolled up all the way up.”

See more on the gallery’s site.

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