Ghosts In The Sunlight: I Find Women’s Invisible Histories In Old Masters

What if the female characters we’ve come to know from the old masters – the lounging odalisques, the giggling nymphs, the chorus that whispers in the background – present more than a voyeuristic visual feast? What if these characters embody a flickering of female power at work?

My large-scale oil paintings pull at the shadows of historical works of art and ask what dormant new narratives might be found in the female subjects that inhabit them. What invisible histories might be embedded or encoded? Is it possible to restore autonomy to these models, to whatever nuances of expression might have been contained in their poses? Maybe it cannot be “restored” – they are long gone – but perhaps it can be conceived afresh.

My paintings are an act of distillation, boiling off the extravagance and iconography of these original sources in pursuit of more delicate, less definite, but perhaps truer relationships.

More info: angelafraleigh.com

Carried By Voices

Oil, 23kt gold leaf and synthetic resin on canvas, 66″ x 90″, 2014

Something Has Already Started To Live In You That Will Live Longer Than The Sun

Oil, acrylic, gouache and synthetic resin on canvas, 66″ x 90″, 2014

Ghosts In The Sunlight

Oil and 23kt gold leaf on canvas, 90″ x 66″, 2014

Though They Crowded Between, And Usurped The Kiss Of My Mouth, Their Breath Was Your Gift, Their Beauty, Your Life

Oil and synthetic resin on linen, 72” x 84”, 2014

You’ll See Me From A Trillion Miles Away

Oil and synthetic resin on canvas, 48”x 60”, 2014

The Language Of Stones

Oil and synthetic resin on canvas, 36” x 24”, 2014

We Held Hands Beneath The Dirt

Oil on canvas over panel, 14” x 11”, 2014

Morning Hush

Oil on canvas over panel 14” x 11” 2014

Winter Reigns

Oil on canvas over panel 14” x 11” 2014

Installation View Of Ghosts In The Sunlight, Inman Gallery, Houston, TX

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