West, London
Ella Kruglyanskaya
Shadows
Thomas DaneThomas Dane Gallery presents an exhibition of new paintings by Ella Kruglyanskaya, the first in a series of three exhibitions across the year. Entitled Shadows, Kruglyanskaya's exhibition assembles new paintings and drawings that honor and question the legacy of the artists and experiences that have shaped her practice. Drawing on the works of Josef Albers, Édouard Manet, Juan Sanchez Cotan, Anthea Hamilton, Rene Magritte as well as numerous representations of odalisques in art history, Kruglyanskaya's new works explore the nature of artistic influence and the enduring conversation about the future of painting. Kruglyanskaya's many frames of reference encompass textile design, graphic arts and the histories of painting. These histories are often amusingly reformulated within large-scale portraits that combine cartoonish and sardonic figures with elements of still life, playing on the tradition of memento mori. In Everyone and Their Mortality (2024) Kruglyanskaya translates contemporary ideograms into trompe l 'oeil, and places these symbols in familiar art historical scenes, wherein her humor undercuts scenes of emotional tension or confrontation. In her new body of work, the long shadows cast by light entering Kruglyanskaya's New York studio reframe images created by her painterly influences or are dappled across rushing female figures and overlaid with references to technology, both evolving and obsolete. These acts of homage are destabilized by satirical or double entendre titles that call into question our contemporary ways of seeing and making. —Thomas Dane Gallery Ella Kruglyanskaya lives and works in New York. Selected solo exhibitions include: This is a Robbery, Thomas Dane Gallery, London, England (2020); Ella Kruglyanskaya, Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn, Germany (2018); Ella Kruglyanskaya, Tate Liverpool, Liverpool, England (2016); Fancy Problems, Thomas Dane Gallery, London, England (2015); Grafika, The Power Station, Dallas TX (2014); How to work together, Studio Voltaire residency and show, London, England (2014). Selected group exhibitions include: Pictus Porrectus: Reconsidering the Full-Length Portrait, Isaac Bell House, Providence RI (2022); New Time: Art and Feminisms in the 21st Century, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley CA (2022); The Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts 2019, Ljubljana, Slovenia; Baltic Triennial 2018, Contemporary Art Centre, Villinus, Lithuania; Ella Kruglyanskaya & Matt Paweski, Lulu, Mexico City, Mexico (2018); Tainted Love, Confort Moderne, Poitiers, France (2017) and Little Vera, kim? (with Sanya Kantarovsky), Contemporary Art Centre, Riga, Latvia (2014).