Hope Gangloff’s Expressive and Visually Striking Portraits

New York based artist Hope Gangloff paints expressive and visually striking portraits with emotional depth. First covered here, her portraits primarily depict family, friends and other artists in intimate, vaguely erotic and melancholy scenes. Gangloff has described her paintings as caricatures- rather than capturing her subjects’ likeness, she focuses on their details separately and intensely, and exaggerates their features like hands and feet. There is usually a detailed pattern in the piece, a “randomness”, which she says keeps her interested and engaged during the painting process. Some portraits feel staged, even cinematic, as in her portrait of a modern day “Salome”. At the same time, her gestural qualities bring an immediacy to the scene, enhanced by her working in acrylic paints and sometimes ink. Her expressionistic use of line and bold colors are reminiscent of the early modernist German Expressionists, and recall the works of other figurative artists like Egon Schiele or Alice Neel. Those artists valued expression and emotional effect over portraying realism. Gangloff takes her subjects as they are- naked, hairy, voluptuous, confident, anxious, and brings out their vulnerabilities in their most private moments.