Swooping contours and bands of color endow his paintings with an angular clarity often compared to Cubist and other modernist styles, while their tactile surfaces - finely scored and textured through the use of palette knives and scraping- convey a sense of touch, rawness, and labor. Fratino typically begins his work from drawings that recall a particular mood or moment, and then expands upon these compositions in scale, form, and color during the painting process. The subject matter of his work ranges from nude figures to landscapes and still lifes, often drawn from his lived experiences rather than from photographs or sitters. Louis Fratino is a New York-based artist whose work fuses personal memories with art historical references to explore queerness, intimacy, and love in gestures and scenes of everyday life. I needed to live truthfully - so I chose me.” Louis Fratino I had a choice to live as my authentic self or live for someone else a long time ago. In the artist’s words, “My work is a celebration of life, of being. His arrangements reimagine posture, autonomy, and rigidity to underscore the bonds and liberty of his sitters. With festive color palettes, luminous skin tones, and lush patterning, Cruz’s paintings present his intersectional subjects in ways that defy conventions. Created during the pandemic, these intimate and collaborative moments of connection expand on conventional notions of family and portraiture. In a new series of works, chosen family, the artist asks sitters to invite another person, or group of people, to gather with their chosen kin as a way to express the nonbiological bonds queer people form out of mutual support and love. Inviting friends, family, artists, and others to be a part of his paintings has long been a part of Cruz’s process. About the Artists David Antonio Cruzĭavid Antonio Cruz is a Boston- and New York-based painter and mixed-media performance artist whose work centers Black, brown, and queer bodies. Colorful, surprising, and full of life, A Place for Me is a testament to the vitality of contemporary figurative art, reflecting a multitude of styles and approaches to painting through a cross-section of contemporary painting today. David Antonio Cruz, Louis Fratino, Doron Langberg, Aubrey Levinthal, Gisela McDaniel, Arcmanoro Niles, Celeste Rapone, and Ambera Wellmann are propelling figurative painting’s recent revival by depicting what they love-their friends, lovers, and family studio spaces and homes and the scenes that make up their everyday. Evoking intimacy, community, and the personal in the power to represent oneself in painting, these artists consider the politics of seeing and being seen and how the process of painting might register care, tenderness, fragility, empathy, and resilience. A Place for Me celebrates a new generation of artists at the vanguard of contemporary painting.
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