Angela Fraleigh

Splinters of a Secret Sky - Splinters

2021

Many of Angela Fraleigh’s haunting and carefully staged tableaux feature women drawn from the annals of Baroque and Rococo “boudoir paintings” — titillating scenes meant to fan the ardor of the viewer. But she puts a contemporary twist on this iconography by giving her characters more agency than was typical of earlier eras.

In Fraleigh’s paintings, which can extend to eight feet, group scenes are typically set against a backdrop of lush painterly effects, ranging from pure abstraction to suggestions of flora and fauna. “I want my paintings to be magical and mesmerizing — seductive, while also inspiring the viewer to ask questions about who they are, where they are, what power they have available and how they might use that power,” the artist says.

Adds Ted Holland, a director at Hirschl & Adler Galleries, in New York, which represents Fraleigh’s work: “She examines the roles and depictions of women in art history — as subject, object, artist and muse — and repositions those often-marginalized figures at the center of her own paintings. The mix of figuration and abstraction allows the female figures to exist without the signifiers of time and location, ultimately giving the figures a new power and context.”

But Fraleigh’s practice also has a quieter, more intimate side. She is an exquisite draftsman who has focused on, among other subjects, the animal kingdom and the intricacies of women’s hair, and some of her smaller paintings have a quiet mystery reminiscent of Gerhard Richter’s tender portraits.

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