Eleanor Aldrich Paintings

KITCHEN SINK (w/ RAYS) is a large scale oil on canvas painting created in 2022 by Eleanor Aldrich. This piece is created using more abstract qualities than her previous work. Utilizing a filter from Apple's Photo Booth, she has created a composition that centers around a subject working at a kitchen sink. Outwardly projecting from this image (or closing in on) are rays of color and light. The expanding and contracting effect is meant to symbolize the quick passage of time. KITCHEN SINK (w/ RAYS) was part of a two person exhibition with Pamela Jorden...

INCLINED READER is an oil and canvas painting by Eleanor Aldrich created in 2022. This piece utilizes a thick caulk on top of the canvas as an underlayment, adding a wavy, structural texture to the painting. In the center, we see a young girl reading. She’s laying on a bed, inclined slightly, with her head and gaze turned towards the viewer. Her legs, along with the colors of the background and the bedding, warp into rays emanating to the edges of the canvas. The painting resembles a nostalgic, family-archive type photograph, processed through a simple photobooth filter. INCLINED READER was featured as part of a two-person exhibition with Pamela Jorden...

CLAIRE AT THE PIANO is an oil on canvas painting by Eleanor Aldrich created in 2022. This piece utilizes a thick caulk on top of the canvas as an underlayment, adding a linear texture. The subject of the painting is a young girl sitting by the piano...

NIGHT TABLE is an oil on canvas painting by Eleanor Aldrich created in 2022. This piece utilizes a thick caulk on top of the canvas as an underlayment, creating a pattern of thick, c...

THE ROSE DRAPE is an oil on canvas painting by Eleanor Aldrich created in 2022. This piece utilizes a thick caulk on top of the canvas as an underlayment, creating a grid texture. Th...

PROM HAIR is an oil on canvas painting created by Eleanor Aldrich in 2022. This piece utilizes a thick caulk on top of the canvas as an underlayment. The texture gives the canvas an over exaggerated "tooth" that adds a sculptural quality to the painting. The scene painted is taken from a magazine in the 90s where someone is preparing a girl's hair from prom night. This piece has a nostalgic quality that is echoed by the rays of light acting as somewhat of a time-warp. PROM HAIR was featured as part of a two person exhibition with Pamela Jorden...

IRONING (w/ RAYS) is an oil on canvas painting by Eleanor Aldrich created in 2021. In this piece, we see a woman ironing a white cloth. Only the torso part and the arms are discernible, with the focus on the woman’s outfit. In the background, behind the figure, we can see a spray bottle...

COMBING (w/ RAYS) is an oil on canvas painting by Eleanor Aldrich created in 2021. In this piece we see a scene of a girl having her hair combed by her mother. The thick texture of the imagery is created utilizing a device made by the artist in which the paint is literally combed through the forms to give the contour lines and illusion of space. Aldrich is utilizing a palette that has more neutral tones in the center of the canvas while bold rays of color expand from the center and outwards towards the edge of the piece. COMBING (w/ RAYS) was featured as part of a two person exhibition with Pamela...

I often base my work on the covers of Nancy Drew books. She is illustrated as a doubly conscious figure: partially mugging for the viewer, and partially inv...

A feminine figure occupies the majority of the right side of this canvas, and though we can't see her face, we know that she is looking at the wall beside her. The wall is disheveled, seemingly covered with graffiti and a broken mirror hangs loosely at a precarious angle. -- 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 these works, Aldrich paints on surfaces that have been covered in uniform vertical strips of caulk. The textures don’t play into the subjects of these paintings so much as create a consistent 3D pattern across the whole surface of a wood panel covered with canvas. Two of the most interesting works in this style give us graphic renderings of domestic interiors laid out in blocks of color and elemental shapes. 'Kitchen Sink' and 'Ironing' depict counters, faucets and ironing boards through a distorted perspective that’s unnervingly deep and narrow, vertiginous and claustrophobic. The caulk brings lots of texture to these works, and Aldrich’s paint appears to be applied in chromatic washes of yellow, pink and blue that seem serene given their off-kilter surroundings. In fact, Aldrich uses the repeating vertical textures to create vividly colored lenticular illusions in these works, which only reveal themselves as viewers move past the paintings. In addition to their formal qualities and their narrative content, Aldrich’s works also comment on traditional gender roles in Western society. Her narrative portraits are mostly inspired by the covers of Nancy Drew novels. Drew, the “girl detective” who first appeared in print as a female counterpart to the Hardy Boys...

Excerpt from a review by art critic Joe Nolan: "In these works, Aldrich paints on surfaces that have been covered in uniform vertical strips of caulk. The textures don’t play into the subjects of these paintings so much as create a consistent 3D pattern across the whole surface of a wood panel covered with canvas. Two of the most interesting works in this style give us graphic renderings of domestic interiors laid out in blocks of color and elemental shapes. 'Kitchen Sink' and 'Ironing' depict counters, faucets and ironing boards through a distorted perspective that’s unnervingly deep and narrow, vertiginous and claustrophobic. The caulk brings lots of texture to these works, and Aldrich’s paint appears to be applied in chromatic washes of yellow, pink and blue that seem serene given their off-kilter surroundings. In fact, Aldrich uses the repeating vertical textures to create vividly colored lenticular illusions in these works, which only reveal themselves as viewers move past the paintings. In addition to their formal qualities and their narrative content, Aldrich’s works also comment on traditional gender roles in Western society. Her narrative portraits are mostly inspired by the covers of Nancy Drew novels. Drew, the “girl detective” who first appeared in print as a female counterpart to the Hardy Boys...