Step into Mayfair gallery Saatchi Yates’s latest exhibition and you’ll be awed by what appears to be simply a celebration of the female body. Look closer and you’ll note this powerful collection of over 14 paintings in fact seeks to both reexplore the male gaze and reject the male fantasy.
This self-titled exhibition by Zurich-born, New York-based artist Angela Santana showcases an examination of the Internet, embracing it as her modern-day muse, to transform the female body from object to subject.
Those familiar with Santana’s work will note her opposition of the conservative, classical and male-dominated art world is ever prevalent through this collection of her work. In addition, her radical approach to painting that disrupts the traditional, is represented by her incorporation of digital work reimagined through a series of large-scale oil canvases.
Working with an expanse of illicit images sourced online, Santana reflects this bountiful demand in society to observe the history of the female body in the arts and its influence in today’s digital age. Referencing a range of New York female artist predecessors, Santana’s credits Joan Semmel, Dana Schutz, Cecily Brown and Georgia O’Keefe as her inspiration as she asks the viewer to reexamine the force of the female painter and her subjects. Reconfiguring her subjects into protected and reimagined figures, Santana’s work reinterprets the servitude of the male gaze.
The artist notes, “By shifting the object to become the new subject, I highlight how, throughout history, images of women were often passive and pleasing”. Santana presents this shift in her new exhibition by introducing us to a protected female erotic representation that is in vast contrast to both passivity and meekness.
Santana’s technique required her to digitally create each artwork through hundreds of layers that also saw the artist dismantle and depict each image in this new translation. Any digital anomalies are drenched into her work before a reimagination with rigid brushtrokes in oil onto large-scale canvases to emphases the power and permanence of her work.
Though undoubtedly a mélange of colour and sensuous form, Santana’s work is intended to be imposing rather than traditionally pleasing. Breaking convention to consider the status quo, this exhibition asks how as a society we may future witness, present and digest female bodies within visual arts.
This free-to-view exhibition runs until 31 August 2022 and so be sure to catch Santana’s work in all its glory this summer at Saatchi Yates. A commercial gallery founded by Phoebe Saatchi Yates and Arthur Yates in 2020, is considered a divine home for both modern and contemporary artwork in London. Encompassing over 10,000 sq ft of exhibition space across two floors, Saatchi Yates is renowned in its showcase of emerging artists and blue-chip contemporary art sourced from private collections. Working closely with Charles Saatchi as an advisor, the pair have developed a gallery model that takes the commercial art world into an exciting new direction.
Angela Santana’s self-titled exhibition runs 09 June – 31 August 2022 at the Saatchi Yates Gallery.
Saatchi Yates Gallery, 6 Cork Street, London W1
saatchiyates.com
