Nathalie Weis
Enigmatic Realms
June 4 - June 25, 2010
Reception:
Thursday June 10, 2010 6-8 PM
Press Release
Nathalie Weis paints highly saturated pop vignettes that straddle the border of reality and illusion, art and poetry, Andy Warhol and Walt Disney. Cross cultural references and dangerous texts pepper the canvas between kitschy cartoon characters. In the spirit of American pop art these characters are provocatively flat, brightly colored and always talking back. Working in the vernacular of the globalized commercial milieu, Weis poses a smart critique of the polished façade of the pleasure industry joined to her own real life recollections of growing up in a country ravaged by war. With bold, crisp marks of acrylic on canvas she deconstructs the singular charm of advertising’s engineered fantasy world, denying the simple gesture of Warhol era pop by imbuing it with national, international and personal narrative.
Nathalie Weis is a German/Lebanese artist and poet living in New York. She grew up in Baghdad, Iraq and has lived in Europe, South-America, the Middle East and North America.
Artist Statement
I am giving a new twist to old standards by adding more reality into the scene. I call my art 'Poetic Pop Art', the evolution of Pop Art! In classic Pop Art the detail is moved into isolation to draw the attention to the trivial, using the power of Striking Art. The trivial becomes the new focus and is set in a new context. 'Poetic Pop Art' takes it one step further. By adding 'drama' to the trivial a contradiction is created, the trivial nullified! This extra element gives the scene a whole new dynamic... Both content and appearance involve contradiction - using acrylics on canvas allows me to work with the intensity of opaque colors and their brightness. The seriousness of the Message and the cheerfulness of the Image almost fight with each other, resulting in an initial moment of shock for the viewer.
Invitation to the exhibition
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Artists in this exhibition
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