Lani Emanuel, Installation view at Lora Schlesinger Gallery.
The paintings of Lani Emanuel have been widely exhibited throughout California and in Maine, but She’s Becoming at Lora Schlesinger Gallery in Bergamot Station, Santa Monica is the artist’s first solo show. The exhibition presents Emanuel’s figurative paintings of young women in various stages of youth, as well as small paintings of what can be presumed are those same young women’s shoes and matching or mismatched socks. Filled with emotion, humor and cunning, this is a significant show, and tomorrow (Saturday, March 12, 2016) is the last day to catch it.
Also: Exhibit | Carrie Mae Weems: Considered
Lani Emanuel, “Orange Zara”, 2014.
These portraits of girls and their footwear are painted in muted tones that are filled with color. Linear edges are softened at the edges, the subject-characters treated with a kind of fragility yet imbued with grace. Emanuel’s strong painting skills and sense of fun convey the subject’s attitude, via their physiognomy and outfits, both of which allow the viewer to enter the young ladys’ emotional worlds.
Emanuel had been a fashion designer years before becoming a mother, and both roles have influenced her acute understanding of the part fashion plays in being female. The impetus for the series was Emanuel’s new status as an “empty nester.”
“When my daughter went back east for college, I missed her terribly,” says the artist. “I spent a lot of time thinking about her adolescence and comparing it to my own. Although our upbringings were very different, we had certain experiences in common, such as feeling our emotions intensely and using fashion as a means of identity experimentation or declaration. This, in combination with specific personal memories, became the inspiration for this series.”
Lani Emanuel, “Cell Phone Girl”, 2014.
Paint colors and strokes come across as deliberately connected to the story of each girl. The idea of ‘change’ is present in each portrait – multiple colors, muted backgrounds, and complex transitions appear, rich and distinct yet never severe. “While creating a painting, I do have the story of the girl in mind,” says Emnauel, “I treat each one as being uniquely individual. I may use softer brush strokes with muted color, or more active brush strokes with bolder color, or visa versa, even the occasional palette knife.
“Either way, I strive for color cohesion and a descriptive counterpoint of paint textures within each painting, often using a differing paint application for the girls and their clothing than for the minimalistic or non-environments in which they are placed. I believe this, along with compositional intent, which I learned from my wonderful mentor and friend D.J. Hall, serves to support the story and allows the viewer to more easily focus their consideration on the girl.”
In She’s Becoming, there is a very tight unity between fashion and art which is almost “Pop”, not only in its formal engagement with fashion, but in its correlation of fine art as commercial enterprise. Here, fashion design and figurative painting succinctly and powerfully intersect. “As a former fashion designer, choosing clothing is an integral part of my creative process,” says the artist, “certain Pop Art, and its symbiotic relationship with fashion, such as that of Warhol and Katz, has definitely had some level of influence on my work.”
Nonetheless, it is the Impressionists system of observation and practice that Emanuel relates to, translating reality into corresponding artistic interactions of light, contour and color. Says Emanuel, “I think of my work as a painterly version of Contemporary Realism.”
