How To Eliminate Stress And Anxiety Through Good Housekeeping ...
07-04-2023Solo exhibition
MasseyKlein Gallery
New York, USA
How to Eliminate Stress and Anxiety through Good Housekeeping, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Martine Johanna. On view from April 7th through May 20th, an opening reception will be held on Saturday, April 8th from 4-7pm. This is the artist’s third solo exhibition with the gallery. For press inquiries or questions regarding works available, please email info@masseyklein.com
These seven new paintings continue the artist’s investigation between public perception and private self-image this time infused with some irony and light humor. The ever changing, multifaceted role of women within western society continues to be a main pillar of Johanna’s work, always championing the female figure. The artist’s playful yet weighty scenes focus the viewers’ attention on the stark duality of reality and dreamlike escapism, igniting discussions on a complicated identity crisis of what we are in comparison to what is expected, projected, or demanded from us, in real life and social media. Her semi-autobiographical works feature large and vivid figures that hover between surrealist abstraction and complex, mysterious narratives. Johanna’s paintings explore perceptions of gender, competition, beauty, personality and attraction not only in relation to her own personal life, but also in relation to art history.
Part of Johanna’s inspiration is drawn from childhood. Raised with a strict upbringing, the artist grew up in an environment structured by traditional gender divides, rules and roles.
Cheap dime novels, TV programs and fashion magazines, much like the screens and social media channels of today, provided escape into an illusive and ethereal world filled with fairytale castles and savior princes. Johanna’s female protagonists playfully exhibit the inner struggle between youthful naivety and adulthood, in an attempt to establish their own identities while trying to fit into the world around them.
For these seven new paintings, Johanna drew inspiration from the x-ray of Titian’s Venus with a Mirror. Beautiful, posed and admirable in every way, we see Venus gazing into a mirror in different depths. Does she see herself through the same lens as society around her? Much like Titian’s Venus with a Mirror, though in her own modern and prismatic way, Johanna’s visually stimulating compositions raise questions without revealing possible answers, leaving the viewer to contemplate the scenes and come to their own conclusions whether projected or internalized.
Drawing direct inspiration from classic 1970’s color schemes, technicolor television and Fauvism, the artist first paints dark ground on linen or panel and then layers in the narrative with rich colors, brighter hues and neon. Lured in by the artist’s quintessential optimistic color spectrum, the paintings in How to Eliminate Stress and Anxiety through Good Housekeeping are elaborate, detailed, suggestive and hypnotizing.
Featured work:
Cheap dime novels, TV programs and fashion magazines, much like the screens and social media channels of today, provided escape into an illusive and ethereal world filled with fairytale castles and savior princes. Johanna’s female protagonists playfully exhibit the inner struggle between youthful naivety and adulthood, in an attempt to establish their own identities while trying to fit into the world around them.
For these seven new paintings, Johanna drew inspiration from the x-ray of Titian’s Venus with a Mirror. Beautiful, posed and admirable in every way, we see Venus gazing into a mirror in different depths. Does she see herself through the same lens as society around her? Much like Titian’s Venus with a Mirror, though in her own modern and prismatic way, Johanna’s visually stimulating compositions raise questions without revealing possible answers, leaving the viewer to contemplate the scenes and come to their own conclusions whether projected or internalized.
Drawing direct inspiration from classic 1970’s color schemes, technicolor television and Fauvism, the artist first paints dark ground on linen or panel and then layers in the narrative with rich colors, brighter hues and neon. Lured in by the artist’s quintessential optimistic color spectrum, the paintings in How to Eliminate Stress and Anxiety through Good Housekeeping are elaborate, detailed, suggestive and hypnotizing.
Featured work:
2023
