Menu
The New Contemporary Art Magazine

Serena Cole’s Stirring Mixed-Media Portraits

Serena Cole blends watercolors, colored pencil, and other materials in her stirring portraits, deftly adding provocative elements in the contours of her subjects. In recent works, the artist "considers each piece an avatar of herself," a recent statement says, with self-portraits that reflect on different experiences of being a woman today.

Serena Cole blends watercolors, colored pencil, and other materials in her stirring portraits, deftly adding provocative elements in the contours of her subjects. In recent works, the artist “considers each piece an avatar of herself,” a recent statement says, with self-portraits that reflect on different experiences of being a woman today.


“Cole’s highly detailed mixed media artwork continues tropes from the history of painting such as the female figure and the still life,” a statement says. “She uses these traditional formats as metaphors to examine what it feels like to be female living in America today. Uncanny, forward-facing and often distraught expressions of her portraits give autonomy to the figures who can see the viewer seeing them.”

See more of Cole’s works below.

Meta
Share
Facebook
Reddit
Pinterest
Email
Related Articles
Germany-born artist Kati Heck crafts absorbing oil and watercolor paintings that use varying sources, whether literary or living models. At times, these surreal scenes utilize abstracted backdrops, at times adorned with text reminiscent of advertisements. Heck was last mentioned on cctvta.com here.
Gwen M.Y. Yip crafts minimalist paintings that explore both themes of loneliness and the shapes and stark structures of urban environments. Based on her travels through London, New York City, Hong Kong, and Amsterdam, she’s able to show the universality of solitude in these settings. Her subjects wait for trains, walk sidewalks, and carry literal and metaphorical weights on their backs.
Andy Dixon's vibrant and decadent paintings examine the relationship between art and money. Whether it's the personal rooms of patrons or coveted works from the Christie's catalog, Dixon’s lush pieces look at the worth assigned to objects and expressions. (The artist shows new examples of this in an upcoming show at Joshua Liner Gallery.)
Chinese artist Ying Yefu creates blatantly macabre paintings with a punchline. It's as if each piece involves some sort of visual joke, where one detail is altered in such a way that the forms we thought we recognized are not what they seem. A cranium peeled open to reveal red blood doubles as a watermelon parted down the middle. An infant's body is hybridized with a phallic, fleshy appendage that extends out of his head lopsidedly. Part of the visual pleasure of Ying's work is deducing the various incongruous elements at play in each piece. While Ying's art is reminiscent of the creepy-cute aesthetic popularized by Japanese painters of the generation before him (Ying was born in 1980), much of his work is executed using traditional Chinese painting techniques that tie his unmistakably contemporary style to his cultural heritage.

Subscribe to the Hi-Fructose Mailing List