Virgins and Madonna’s
By Saskia De Schrijver
"Adoration of the Virgins", Ellen Depoorter.
From 30 October to 4 December, NY-based Belgian artist Ellen Depoorter reveals her latest collection of paintings of an ongoing series of nudes. Last spring the series started off with an impressive first collection, named "Adoration of the Virgins". This fall, Caren Golden Fine Art presents "Virgins and Madonna’s", an exhibition curated by Joao Ribas.
‘Virgins and Madonna’s operates like a Trojan horse. Using images from websites spreading and displaying pornography the artist reacts against plain sexualization of the female image. Bringing female presence to the notice of the spectator, Depoorter does not participate in the game. On the contrary, the artist illuminates female sexuality, adding delicacy and vulnerability through her painting skills. As such, each painting becomes the embodiment of true flirting female eroticism. ‘Virgins and Madonna’s’ evokes an atmosphere of ‘vernacular holiness’, a pagan poetry in which female sexuality claims its own righteous position.
Ellen Depoorters work concentrates on portraying the feminine identity and tends to sublimate woman’s psychological anatomy. A remarkable previous series of paintings ‘Marion’ zooms in on the experience of terror and death. The series is a contemporary reproduction of Hitchcock’s famous shower scene in the classic ‘Psycho’. ‘Total Bliss’ on the other hand visualizes sheer happiness, while ‘Undefined’, one of Depoorter’s earliest small series of paintings, places femininity in a natural environment.
"Virgins and Madonna’s" runs in Caren Golden Fine Arts gallery, 539 West 23rd Street, Ground Floor, New York.
