Silicone Paintings

A feminine figure reclines in a pink and blue-strapped hammock. The figure sitting in the hammock is activated by Aldrich’s transformation of paint and silicone into layered, glistening, and oozing swaths of skin. The hammock, recalling the grid, works as a pattern trying to hold and contain the body resting inside it. -- Building on her previous show, Main Squeeze, which featured bodies pressing through the grid of lawn chairs, in “That Feeling When,” Aldrich expands the excess of materials to large figure paintings and small, overfilled sculptures. Aldrich uses thick materials that protrude from the surface, reminding the viewer that the paintings are not only physical objects in themselves, but also create the illusion of the picture. The work employs a risky excess of material that borders on uncontrollable; becoming metaphoric for barely controlled femininity, the attraction and repulsion of materialism, and the body pressing against constraints. The figures in the paintings are seen from behind or have turned away. The viewer is put in a place of questioning whether they are a voyeur or a co-viewer with the figure of something deeper in the picture plane. The full body paintings of young women based on Nancy Drew...

In the series of paintings titled “That Feeling When,” Aldrich expands the excess of materials to large figure paintings and small, overfilled sculptures. Aldrich uses thick materials that protrude from the surface, reminding the viewer that the paintings are not only physical objects in themselves, but also create the illusion of the picture. The work employs a risky excess of material that borders on uncontrollable; becoming metaphoric for barely controlled femininity, the attraction and repulsion of materialism, and the body pressing against constraints. The figures in the paintings are seen from behind or have turned away. The viewer is put in a place of questioning whether they are a voyeur or a co-viewer with the figure of something deeper in the picture plane. The full body paintings of young women based on Nancy Drew...

"Nanette (Back with Fence)" is a textural, contemporary figure painting by Knoxville based artist Eleanor Aldrich. Refusing engagement, the figure is turned away from the viewer. Further distance is created by a rugged representation of a chain link fence and layers of paint, enamel, and silicone. The only clue to the figure's gender is in the title, and the collision of industrial materials with a female representation provides a poignant conflict. Flashes of found paper provide hints of a t-shirt or other type of graphic clothing...

"Lawn Chair with White T-shirt" is part of the latest on-going series from Eleanor Aldrich. These "behind the lawn chair" vantage points provide Aldrich with the perfect subject matt...

"Reader in a Lawn Chair" is part of the latest on-going series from Eleanor Aldrich. These "behind the lawn chair" vantage points provide Aldrich with the perfect subject matter to convey her mixed media approach. More info below: Eleanor Aldrich was born in Springerville, Arizona. A participant at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine, she also holds an MFA in Painting & Drawing from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she currently lives. She earned her BFA in Painting & Drawing through the Academie Minerva (Groningen, the Netherlands) and Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff. She was a participant in the Drawing Center’s first Open Sessions. Eleanor has had solo shows in Boston, Nashville, Knoxville, Flagstaff, AZ, and at the University of Alabama. Her work has been shown at Saltworks Gallery (Atlanta, GA), the Drawing Center (New York, NY), Grin (Providence, RI) and Ortega y Gasset (New York, NY). Her work was chosen for 1708 Gallery’s ‘FEED 2013’ (Richmond, VA). She has been awarded an Endowment for the Arts through the Whiteman Foundation, and the Herman E. Spivey Fellowship. Her work has been included in New American Paintings and on Artforum. Aldrich's work is textural and alchemical; she matches materials – often industrial sealants – and techniques to the subject matter they look like, thereby approaching a likeness without realistic rendering. She attributes her appreciation of mystery and the possibility of transformation in her work to her Catholic upbringing, in which materials were transformed and images held power over life. Her work intersects modernist painting, her own experiences, and the physicality of the body. Sometimes her work is about the application – paint is combed, piped, sprinkled and sprayed, reflecting traditional feminine work and crafts. Often the subject matter acts as a metaphor. The lines of a lawn chair seat serves as a veiled reference to the grid, and its breakdown – presumably by human weight – to an imagined encounter with the human body. *Make sure to use the "view in a room...

DOUBLE PORTRAIT was created with bubble wrap as a mold for silicone. Eleanor Aldrich then takes this silicone andP paints the portrait you see here of a couple embraced for their por...

"Girl with Seagull Tattoo" uses caulking to create the texture of lace as the prominent physicality of the clothing is juxtaposed against a background of browns and pastels. The figu...

FAT BACK is part of the latest on-going series from Eleanor Aldrich. These "behind the lawn chair" vantage points provide Aldrich with the perfect subject matter to convey her mixed media approach. More info below: Eleanor Aldrich was born in Springerville, Arizona. A participant at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine, she also holds an MFA in Painting & Drawing from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she currently lives. She earned her BFA in Painting & Drawing through the Academie Minerva (Groningen, the Netherlands) and Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff. She was a participant in the Drawing Center’s first Open Sessions. Eleanor has had solo shows in Boston, Nashville, Knoxville, Flagstaff, AZ, and at the University of Alabama. Her work has been shown at Saltworks Gallery (Atlanta, GA), the Drawing Center (New York, NY), Grin (Providence, RI) and Ortega y Gasset (New York, NY). Her work was chosen for 1708 Gallery’s ‘FEED 2013’ (Richmond, VA). She has been awarded an Endowment for the Arts through the Whiteman Foundation, and the Herman E. Spivey Fellowship. Her work has been included in New American Paintings and on Artforum. Aldrich's work is textural and alchemical; she matches materials – often industrial sealants – and techniques to the subject matter they look like, thereby approaching a likeness without realistic rendering. She attributes her appreciation of mystery and the possibility of transformation in her work to her Catholic upbringing, in which materials were transformed and images held power over life. Her work intersects modernist painting, her own experiences, and the physicality of the body. Sometimes her work is about the application – paint is combed, piped, sprinkled and sprayed, reflecting traditional feminine work and crafts. Often the subject matter acts as a metaphor. The lines of a lawn chair seat serves as a veiled reference to the grid, and its breakdown – presumably by human weight – to an imagined encounter with the human body. *Make sure to use the "view in a room...

"Fat Back with Tattoos" is part of the latest on-going series from Eleanor Aldrich. These "behind the lawn chair" vantage points provide Aldrich with the perfect subject matter to convey her mixed media approach. More info below: Eleanor Aldrich was born in Springerville, Arizona. A participant at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine, she also holds an MFA in Painting & Drawing from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she currently lives. She earned her BFA in Painting & Drawing through the Academie Minerva (Groningen, the Netherlands) and Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff. She was a participant in the Drawing Center’s first Open Sessions. Eleanor has had solo shows in Boston, Nashville, Knoxville, Flagstaff, AZ, and at the University of Alabama. Her work has been shown at Saltworks Gallery (Atlanta, GA), the Drawing Center (New York, NY), Grin (Providence, RI) and Ortega y Gasset (New York, NY). Her work was chosen for 1708 Gallery’s ‘FEED 2013’ (Richmond, VA). She has been awarded an Endowment for the Arts through the Whiteman Foundation, and the Herman E. Spivey Fellowship. Her work has been included in New American Paintings and on Artforum. Aldrich's work is textural and alchemical; she matches materials – often industrial sealants – and techniques to the subject matter they look like, thereby approaching a likeness without realistic rendering. She attributes her appreciation of mystery and the possibility of transformation in her work to her Catholic upbringing, in which materials were transformed and images held power over life. Her work intersects modernist painting, her own experiences, and the physicality of the body. Sometimes her work is about the application – paint is combed, piped, sprinkled and sprayed, reflecting traditional feminine work and crafts. Often the subject matter acts as a metaphor. The lines of a lawn chair seat serves as a veiled reference to the grid, and its breakdown – presumably by human weight – to an imagined encounter with the human body. *Make sure to use the "view in a room...