{"id":698,"date":"2021-05-19T08:11:22","date_gmt":"2021-05-19T00:11:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.atelierauction.com\/globalupdates\/?p=698"},"modified":"2021-05-17T11:15:39","modified_gmt":"2021-05-17T03:15:39","slug":"emma-pryde-on-the-aesthetics-of-innocence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.atelierauction.com\/globalupdates\/artist\/emma-pryde-on-the-aesthetics-of-innocence\/","title":{"rendered":"EMMA PRYDE ON THE AESTHETICS OF INNOCENCE"},"content":{"rendered":"

The female figures in Emma Pryde\u2019s paintings\u2014on view in her exhibition \u201cCounterplayer\u201d at King\u2019s Leap in New York through June 13\u2014look like crossovers between angels and aliens. They have greenish skin; spindly fingers; small chins; and, sometimes, broad wings. \u201cCounterplayer\u201d comprises seven 20-by-16-inch paintings (all 2021) hung in a row along three walls. On the floor in the center of the gallery sits a small sculpture: a resin lamb with a sword stuck in its back and a glowing red light in its stomach. This work is born of the Wisconsin-based artist\u2019s jewelry and sculpture practices (she\u2019s probably best known for her acrylic sword earrings). Continuing her interest in the aesthetics of innocence and s its inevitable spoiling, Pryde turns, in \u201cCounterplayer,\u201d not only to a new medium, but also toward Christian symbolism. Still, the artist\u2019s signature motifs borrowed from girlish American consumer culture\u2014hearts and bows\u2014crop up in her depictions of martyrs or madonnas. Below, Pryde discusses her path to painting.<\/em><\/p>\n

All the works in this show borrow compositions from late Gothic or early Renaissance Italian paintings, work made right after the Black Death of the fourteenth century. I\u2019ve always been obsessed with that period of art history, because you can see the work breaking away from medieval styles. Viewers can sense that the painters are trying to figure out new methods for rendering figures and depicting space.<\/p>\n

My painting\u00a0Counterplayer\u2019s Anamnesis<\/a><\/em>\u00a0is inspired by Lucas Cranach\u2019s\u00a0Judith with the Head of Holofernes<\/em>\u00a0(ca. 1530). It shows a woman holding both a sword and a man\u2019s decapitated head, but in my version, she\u2019s depicted as a cowgirl alone on the frozen tundra. Throughout the show, I\u2019ve used archetypal characters as a starting point, then I free associated. The cowgirl\u2019s sword has a heart on the handle; her hair is adorned with bows.<\/p>\n

I titled the show \u201cCounterplayer\u201d\u00ad\u2014which refers, in computer programming or game design, to the unknown forces that attempt to overturn the rules or escape the programmer\u2019s control\u2014because the concept mimicked my process as well as my themes. After planning out the borrowed compositions, I allowed myself to play freely within the parameters I\u2019d set up. There\u2019s a lot of doubling, multiplicity, and ambiguity in the paintings, too.\u00a0One gives birth to the other, who in turn gives birth to the first<\/em>, for example, shows two angels I took from the background of Piero della Francesca\u2019s\u00a0Brera Madonna<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(1472\u201374). My title is a riddle posed to Oedipus in some versions of the story of Oedipus and the Sphinx, and the answer is that one of the sisters is day and the other is night. \u201cCounterplayer\u201d also builds on my December 2020 solo show at Mickey in Chicago, \u201cPlayset.\u201d While \u201cCounterplayer\u201d takes place in circa fifteenth-century Italy, \u201cPlayset\u201d takes place in America in and around the 1990s.<\/p>\n

I was a painter as an undergrad, but I haven\u2019t painted in the six years since, until now. Returning to the medium, I decided to stick to traditional techniques, applying oil onto panel in thin layers and using a pretty limited color palette\u2014mostly grays and browns, sometimes with pastel peach or aqua accents. Except for in the sole red painting,\u00a0Extreme Temperatures<\/em>, which shows a woman surrounded by an alizarin crimson landscape. Red is usually associated with heat, anger, or passion, but I wanted to try and use it to create a really cold, almost lonely feeling. It also brings some contrast to the show, making the blues in the other paintings feel more blue.<\/p>\n

Nine Doors<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>is my painting of Lucretia, whose rape and subsequent suicide is said to have catalyzed the rebellion that overthrew the Roman monarchy before it became a republic. Lucretia is an interesting counterplayer; for me, she represents the idea that one event can inspire another that, in turn, causes dramatic change, beyond prescribed rules. The title is taken from something that the surrealist painter Leonora Carrington said to the filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky<\/a>: \u201cI am nine doors. I shall open the one on which you knock.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"A<\/div>\n<\/div>
Emma Pryde:\u00a0Millennium Fence<\/em>, 2020, epoxy dough, garden fence, metal hardware, house paint, colored pencil, graphite, acrylic sheet, and resin charms,
\n40 by 47 by 4 inches.<\/span>COURTESY MICKEY, CHICAGO.<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

In a sense, my jewelry making practice led me to the lamb sculpture in the center of the show. Though before that, it was sculpture that brought me to jewelry. A few years ago, I was making these large, laser-cut acrylic works, and I didn\u2019t want to waste any of the material. So I cut little shapes out of the excess and started putting them on earrings. People became interested in them, especially in the dangling swords, so I started making more of those. When the pandemic hit, I no longer had access to a laser cutter, so I started casting small swords in resin. Getting back into mold-making and casting led me to a lot of the works in \u201cPlayset<\/a>,\u201d and then, to the resin lamb\u2014The More Innocence You Have the More Violence You Constellate\u00a0<\/em>(2021).<\/p>\n

\u201cPlayset\u201d considered the myth of innocence as it\u2019s captured in everyday items\u2014trellises, doll houses, bows. There were also two pieces\u2014Millennium Fence\u00a0<\/em>(2020) and\u00a0Aspirational Lamb Gate<\/em>\u00a0(2020)\u2014that I made using these porcelain molds that were popular among crafty Midwestern women in the 1980s. The resulting sculptures of eggs, lambs, bunnies, apples, and childish human figures look almost like those Precious Moments figurines that have big, sad eyes, or like small plush toys. If you look closely, you\u2019ll notice a lot of my characters\u2019 pants are falling down, and that several look coyly over their shoulders. I cast a bunch of these then affixed them to white garden fences. Some have graffiti on them, inspired by the sort of things kids write on school desks, which are not always so sweet.<\/p>\n

\u2014As told to Emily Watlington<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source\uff1ahttps:\/\/www.artnews.com\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The female figures in Emma Pryde\u2019s paintings\u2014on view in her exhibition \u201cCounterplayer\u201d at King\u2019s Leap in New York through June 13\u2014look like crossovers between angels and aliens. They have greenish skin; spindly fingers; small chins; and, sometimes, broad wings. \u201cCounterplayer\u201d comprises seven 20-by-16-inch paintings (all 2021) hung in a row along three walls. On the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":699,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,13,7,4,3],"tags":[154],"class_list":{"0":"post-698","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artist","8":"category-auction","9":"category-events","10":"category-gallery","11":"category-latest-news","12":"tag-counterplayer"},"yoast_head":"\nEMMA PRYDE ON THE AESTHETICS OF INNOCENCE - Investable Art Auctioneer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The female figures in Emma Pryde\u2019s paintings\u2014on view in her exhibition \u201cCounterplayer\u201d at King\u2019s Leap in New York through June 13\u2014look like crossovers between angels and aliens.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.atelierauction.com\/globalupdates\/artist\/emma-pryde-on-the-aesthetics-of-innocence\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"EMMA PRYDE ON THE AESTHETICS OF INNOCENCE - 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