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The New Contemporary Art Magazine
English painter Mary Jane Ansell creates work that both subverts gender roles and pays homage to the history of portraiture. In a new show at Corey Helford Gallery in Los Angeles, “Of Dreams, Birds and Bones,” she offers a series of paintings that evolves these ideas. The show kicks of June 10 and lasts through July 8. Ansell was last featured on HiFructose.com here.
Portrait artist Mary Jane Ansell may dress up her female subjects in the traditional European fashions of men, but they evoke a strong femininity. Her near-hyper realistic oil paintings portray young girls who step into the roles of regents and soldiers, roles that women were not eligible for. Their clothing, such as the red coat, also takes on a modern connotation in fashion as being punk and fashionably forward. However, her subjects' personalities are more refined than tomboyish, with a delicate beauty in the way she draws eyes and features. Ansell's newer works mix such political elements with those of nature, such as flowers and animal skulls. Take a look at new latest paintings for "Liberty's Arc," after the jump.