Elizabeth Glaessner
Glaessner’s paintings take elements from traditional history painting and re-contextualize them in a distinctly intimate and otherworldly voice. An exploration of memory, personal history and ritual, Glaessner’s work questions the way in which we relate to and envision our past. Her paintings depict a highly detailed mythology of post-human existence on earth that features anthropomorphic, gelatinous figures in familiar, yet toxic, landscapes. These organic creatures appear as if born from natural forms, like tree trunks and rock formations, in attempt to reconstruct lost histories through the detritus left behind.
Using pure pigments dispersed with water, acrylics and oils, Glaessner creates a beautifully saturated and intricately layered world through various painting techniques. The rich media creates illusory qualities that accentuate the amorphous nature of her subjects and their surroundings. Glaessner combines familiar objects with misunderstood and idiosyncratic portraits, often laden with humor that counterpoint her macabre imagery. Like the landscape paintings of Caspar David Friedrich and El Greco, the forms and figures of Glaessner’s world blend together in an attempt to display a malleable reality.
Glaessner has had a solo exhibition at P.P.O.W. in New York and her work has been included in group exhibitions at venues such as Blue Star …
Glaessner’s paintings take elements from traditional history painting and re-contextualize them in a distinctly intimate and otherworldly voice. An exploration of memory, personal history and ritual, Glaessner’s work questions the way in which we relate to and envision our past. Her paintings depict a highly detailed mythology of post-human existence on earth that features anthropomorphic, gelatinous figures in familiar, yet toxic, landscapes. These organic creatures appear as if born from natural forms, like tree trunks and rock formations, in attempt to reconstruct lost histories through the detritus left behind.
Using pure pigments dispersed with water, acrylics and oils, Glaessner creates a beautifully saturated and intricately layered world through various painting techniques. The rich media creates illusory qualities that accentuate the amorphous nature of her subjects and their surroundings. Glaessner combines familiar objects with misunderstood and idiosyncratic portraits, often laden with humor that counterpoint her macabre imagery. Like the landscape paintings of Caspar David Friedrich and El Greco, the forms and figures of Glaessner’s world blend together in an attempt to display a malleable reality.
Glaessner has had a solo exhibition at P.P.O.W. in New York and her work has been included in group exhibitions at venues such as Blue Star Contemporary Art Center in San Antonio, Atrium Messehaus in Leipzig, GlogauAIR in Berlin, and Sargent's Daughters in New York.
Courtesy of P.P.O.W.
Leipzig International Art Programme, Leipzig, Germany
P.P.O.W., New York, NY
