Celeste Rapone (b. 1985, New Jersey) is known for narrative paintings that blur the boundaries between figuration and abstraction. At the core of Rapone’s practice are formalist concerns such as surface, pattern, and color that shape the artist’s inventive figures and scenes. The protagonists of these paintings—often female—are shown in varying moments of repose and activity, their bodies unapologetically spilling towards the edges of the canvas. Emphasizing the act of observation in her work, Rapone layers autobiographical and art historical sources that transcend appropriation.
Rapone’s work has been included in recent institutional exhibitions at Lehman College Art Gallery, Bronx, NY; Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE; and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA; the Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY; M Woods, Beijing, China; the START Museum, Shanghai, China; the Xiao Museum of Contemporary Art, Rizhao, China. Rapone was the 2018 recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, and she earned a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Rapone is represented by Corbett vs. Demsey, Josh Lilley Gallery, and Marianne Boesky Gallery; she lives and works in Chicago, IL.