It's as if she's pulling the vaunted old scenes authored by Great Men through time's vortex and revealing them to be something new – shorn of history's traps but still rooted in its essence, something that shimmers and hums.
–Cate McQuaid
Carol Corey Fine Art is pleased to present an exhibition of new works on paper by Elise Ansel. Opening Saturday, September 14, with an artist reception from 4 to 6 pm, the show will remain on view through October 20, 2024.
Elise Ansel is a “visual translator, taking paintings by the Old Masters and rendering them in a contemporary artistic language, shifting them from figuration into abstraction, transforming their meaning and message”.[1] For Ansel, the act of painting represents an alternative way of seeing, allowing her to engage in an intimate dialogue with her source and to comprehend it on a more profound level.
This new body of work is sparer than before. “Her economy of means in communicating so much makes this latest work stand out like visual haikus.” [2] At the same time, she “combines visual spareness with immense sensuality. She has an astonishing ability to distill the intensity of paintings by Old Masters…and their chiaroscuro effects into a few boldly expressive and incredibly sensual gestures.” [3] The current works reference Bellini, Ruysch, Carpaccio and Memling.
As Ansel has described her process: “I often work from the same Old Master source many times, over a stretch of years, crossing back and forth over the border between figuration and abstraction, searching for things that are fresh and unexpected, gaining familiarity with the image and the confidence to take ever greater risks. In addition to re-presenting historical art from a feminine point of view—adding to, filling out and complementing a pervasively masculine perspective— my goal is to get at the heart of the meaning of the painting, to explore its relevance to the current moment…. Color is the protagonist; it creates a link between my paintings and the historical artworks from which they spring. Gesture breathes life into the paintings. Spontaneity, instinct and intuition eclipse rational, linear thinking during the process of making some of the paintings. Others are more considered. The process of transcription and translation involves exploring the balance between abandon and constraint, intuition and intellect, accident and design.”[4]
Born and raised in New York City, Elise Ansel received her BA from Brown University and her MFA from Southern Methodist University, Dallas. Ansel has exhibited throughout the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe. Her paintings are held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCAK), Krakow Poland, NYU Langone, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, and the Evansville Museum of Arts and Sciences. Elise Ansel lives and works in New York City and Maine.
For further information please contact the gallery at 917-797-9654, or carol@coreyfineart.com.
