Becky Kolsrud

New Paintings
Tif Sigfrids, Athens, US


January 25 - February 29, 2020
installation view, New Paintings, Tif Sigfrids, Athens

Tif Sigfrids is happy to announce a solo exhibition by Los Angeles based artist, Becky Kolsrud. The show, entitled New Paintings, is the artist’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. The show will begin on January 25th and remain on view through March 7th. An opening reception with the artist will be held on February 2nd, from 6-8 in conjunction with Howard’s solo presentation of Jenna Gribbon’s work.

In New Paintings, Kolsrud presents six new paintings in a familiar 20 x 16 inch format. The paintings presented here depict faceless female figures in imaginative landscapes and deal with formal concerns including flatness, opacity, and perceptual shifts between foreground and background. A peculiar interaction between these disfigured bodies and the landscapes they reside in creates a distinct psychological space, consistent throughout this new body of work and reminiscent of California Surrealism.

The paintings can be viewed as a departure for the artist in the foregrounding of the imaginative nature of her process. The protagonists bear a much stronger sense of anonymity than in earlier works and have taken a sharp turn away from references to portraiture. In a number of the paintings faces are superimposed on portrayals of female bathers. Another work illustrates an evening scene in which a woman’s body becomes a shroud for the three other figures depicted in the painting. In one painting a woman is a tree. Viewers are drawn into these visionary landscapes by way of Kolsrud’s symbolic depictions of the figure, which could be understood as stand-ins for a more conceptual representation of “women” and “nature.”

Becky Kolsrud (b. 1984) lives and worsk in Los Angeles, California. She received her BS from NYU in 2006 and her MFA from UCLA in 2012. Her work will be the subject of forthcoming solo exhibitons at Make Room in Los Angeles and JTT Gallery in New York. She is also represented by JTT Gallery in New York.

installation view, New Paintings, Tif Sigfrids, Athens
installation view, New Paintings, Tif Sigfrids, Athens
Untitled (Figures/Face), 2019
oil on canvas
20 x 16 in
51 x 40.5 cm
Untitled (Night), 2019
oil on canvas
20 x 16 in
51 x 40.5 cm
installation view, New Paintings, Tif Sigfrids, Athens
Untitled (Three Figures), 2019
oil on canvas
20 x 16 in
51 x 40.5 cm
Untitled (Checkered Landscape), 2019
oil on canvas
20 x 16 in
51 x 40.5 cm
installation view, New Paintings, Tif Sigfrids, Athens
installation view, New Paintings, Tif Sigfrids, Athens
Untitled (Figures/Face 2), 2019
oil on canvas
20 x 16 in
51 x 40.5 cm
Untitled (Tree Figure), 2019
oil on canvas
20 x 16 in
51 x 40.5 cm