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Angela Fraleigh

Fluttering still

February 10 – March 12, 2021

a painting by Angela Fraleigh of two women from various art historical sources waking in  a complex tangle of Art Nouveau-patterned swirls

Angela Fraleigh (b. 1976)

Fluttering still, 2021

Oil on linen, 90 x 66 in.

a painting by Angela Fraleigh of two women from various art historical sources waking in  a complex tangle of Art Nouveau-patterned swirls

Angela Fraleigh (b. 1976)

Rooted in constellations, 2021

Oil on linen, 90 x 66 in.

a painting by Angela Fraleigh of two women from various art historical sources waking in a complex tangle of Art Nouveau-patterned swirls

Angela Fraleigh (b. 1976)

Shaking to sound the silent skies, 2021

Oil and watercolor on linen over panel, 48 x 36 in.

a painting by Angela Fraleigh of a sleeping woman within an Art Nouveau-patterned composition

Angela Fraleigh (b. 1976)

We tell beginnings, 2021

Oil and watercolor on canvas over panel, 56 x 48 in.

a painting by Angela Fraleigh of two women from various art historical sources waking in a complex tangle of Art Nouveau-patterned swirls

Angela Fraleigh (b. 1976)

A pang of livid light, 2021

Oil and watercolor on linen over panel, 48 x 36 in.

a woman sleeps while another woman watches her in this painting by Angela Fraleigh

Angela Fraleigh (b. 1976)

The stars rise, the moon bends her arc, 2021

Oil on linen, 40 x 30 in.

a painting by Angela Fraleigh of three women laying in repose, taken from art historical sources

Angela Fraleigh (b. 1976)

From sunset to sunrise, 2021

Oil on linen, 30 x 40 in.

a painting by Angela Fraleigh of a woman, taken from art historical sources, laying her head on her hand

Angela Fraleigh (b. 1976)

Silent sparks, 2021

Oil on canvas over panel, 24 x 18 in.

a painting by Angela Fraleigh of a close-crop view of a sleeping woman

Angela Fraleigh (b. 1976)

Wait for me there, 2021

Oil on canvas over panel, 18 x 24 in.

a high-key color, painting by Angela Fraleigh of a woman with eyes closed

Angela Fraleigh (b. 1976)

Tumbling into light, 2021

Oil on canvas over panel, 24 x 18 in.

Press Release

Is it discomfort, or excitement, that you feel when you watch these women languidly roust, or subtly drift asleep? Do you happily play the voyeur, seduced by their beauty and the opulence of their surroundings? Do you feel that nagging tug from your mind that you are being watched, as well? Angela Fraleigh has spent her career exploring narrative art’s hierarchical patterns. Keenly observing how images and roles from Western art history intersect with contemporary representation and attitudes, Fraleigh uncovers why certain tropes remain relevant, who they benefit, and how.

Hirschl & Adler Modern is proud to present Fluttering still, the artist’s debut solo exhibition with the gallery. In these ten new paintings, Fraleigh depicts women in liminal states between wakefulness and sleep to perfectly encapsulate today’s social and political dynamics. The women in Fluttering still are not here to satisfy any outdated notion of their role nor the viewer’s predatory desire. Fraleigh has awoken them within a new context, wherein their agency exists for their own, and each other’s, sake. In rearranging the images of the past, the artist changes how we see ourselves in the present.

Fraleigh, deftly and subtly, empowers her subjects through a variety of strategies. Removing the original art historical context from these figures removes any “traditional” value-based judgments of femininity. In the void, Fraleigh injects additional conceptual layers. In Shaking to sound the silent skies and A pang of livid light, the swirling, abstract patterning surrounding the figures comes from the fin de siècle illustrations rendered by Gerda Wegener and Ethel Reed, two female design pioneers who upended the social norms of their era. Their graphics offer Fraleigh’s figures a haven as well as a lineage. Another key element to Fraleigh’s paintings is her depiction of women together. The “sleeping woman” trope has always been about power, existing to satisfy the voyeuristic viewer. Fraleigh subverts this motif by rendering one woman noticing the other either through her gaze or through contact. This interaction closes a loop wherein there is no room for the viewer. These women are here for each other, and as a result they hold the power. Even routine formal decisions benefit the artist’s concept. While the paintings included in Fluttering still range from the intimate (24 x 18 inches) to the grand (90 x 66 inches), Fraleigh’s figures are always life-sized or larger. Treated this way, no woman is diminished.

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