Frieze London: Gina Beavers

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Marianne Boesky Gallery is pleased to participate in the 2021 edition of Frieze London with a presentation of new works by artist Gina Beavers. The fair will be on view October 13-17, 2021 in London at The Regent’s Park.

The new paintings by Beavers continue her ongoing exploration of the digital landscapes of our everyday lives. To create her works, the artist begins by drawing from the imagery and tools that proliferate online, including platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, image databases, and other online sources in search of images that inspire, compel, and repulse her. Her paintings are intensely tactile, built up by layers of acrylic paint so dense that Beavers is able to sculpt it with a knife. In larger works, the artist also uses foam to add to the fullness of the forms. Within this process, Beavers’ conceptual and formal interests converge, as she pushes the possibilities of paint to its sculptural height while subverting the flatness of the digital image into three dimensions.

The paintings on view highlight a range of Beavers’ sources, including food porn, makeup, nail art, and found memes. In recent years, Beavers has become particularly drawn to makeup tutorials created by both professional and amateur artists, taking stills from tutorials and recreating them with incredible realism to enliven the flattened image with dynamic physicality. In visceral ways, Beavers creates illusionistic paintings that both compel and distort the eye, highlighting the way in which the internet destabilizes our notions of reality whilst simultaneously creating a platform for connection, gratification, and anxiety.

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Gina Beavers (b. 1974; Athens, Greece) has presented her work in solo exhibitions at galleries including Marianne Boesky, New York; Michael Benevento, Los Angeles; GNYP Gallery, Berlin; Carl Kostyal, London and Milan; Various Small Fires, Seoul among others. In March 2019, MoMA PS1 opened Beavers’ first solo museum exhibition, Gina Beavers: The Life I Deserve. Her work has also been included in group presentations at Lehman Art Gallery, the Barns Art Center, Kentucky Museum of Contemporary Art, Louisville; Nassau County Museum of Art, New York; Flag Art Foundation, New York; William Benton Museum of Art, Connecticut; and Abrons Art Center, New York. Exhibitions of her work have been reviewed in the New York Times, the New Yorker, Frieze, Artforum, Art in America among others. Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum, the ICA Miami and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.

Beavers currently has a solo exhibition of works entitled ‘Autofiction’ at the Neuer Essener Kunstervein in Essen, Germany and will have an upcoming solo booth at the Frieze Art Fair in London, UK in October 2021. Beavers holds a BA in Studio Art and Anthropology from the University of Virginia (1996), an MFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2000) and an MS in Education from Brooklyn College (2005). She served as an Adjunct Professor for Grad Studio in the Columbia MFA program in the 2019/2020 school year. She currently lives and works in Orange, New Jersey.