Elizabeth Glaessner – Phantom Tail

P·P·O·W is pleased to present Elizabeth Glaessner’s third exhibition with the gallery, “Phantom Tail”. Siphoning inspiration from an evolving pool of art historical, mythological, and cultural references, and inspired by symbolist painters such as Edvard Munch and Bob Thompson, Glaessner conjures a surreal universe of hypnotic landscapes populated by anthropomorphic doppelgängers, sphinxes, fiends, mirages, and more. Throughout the exhibition, Glaessner’s paintings act as portals, shepherding us into a world unmoored by virtue or vice where all manner of myths coexist without predetermined moral resolution.

The exhibition’s title, “Phantom Tail”, refers to both the lingering sensation of a primordial tail and alludes to possible origin tales now long forgotten. As a child, Glaessner had a protruding tail bone which spawned her investigation of this feature as a lost vestige of humankind’s physical animality and our lost connection with the natural world. In paintings such as “Galatea on Stilts”, 2022, enigmatic limbs and tree trunks tonally and texturally converge, becoming indistinguishable from one another. This convergence reveals society’s cultural castration of our metaphorical ‘tails’ and offers a world where these can be felt again. Informed by her strict Catholic upbringing and close sibling relationships, Glaessner renders alternative psychological, sexual, and emotional worlds where the self is multitudinous, and heaven and hell are made irrelevant.

In her work, Glaessner revels in transformation and multiplicity. Reflecting the metamorphosis occurring within her subjects, Glaessner grounds each painting with a bold color field that is variously poured or stained. Shifting between formal articulation and non-representational gesture, Glaessner works by combining oil, acrylic, and pure pigments dispersed with water and various binders to allow for the spontaneity of the paint to lay the foundation for her fluid narratives. In “Blue Recluse”, 2021, Glaessner depicts a multi-limbed, androgynous being treading in a shallow sea. Bobbing just above the surface of the water, the head of this mythological figure echoes the moon on the horizon, while its highly articulated ankles mirror bones littering the sea floor. Sandwiched between these potent symbols, the figure alternately emerges from and dissolves into the surrounding water. Throughout the exhibition, Glaessner returns to liquid as both crucial to her process and symbolic of the emotional fluctuations of her figures.

Through both process and composition, Glaessner seeks to better understand her emotional world by making it visual, her amorphous figures ultimately serving as conduits for ineffable emotion. By mining her own unconscious, Glaessner simultaneously triggers our collective primal knowledge buried by centuries of societal boundaries and moral codes.

Elizabeth Glaessner (b. 1984) was born in Palo Alto, California and grew up in Houston, Texas. After receiving her BA from Trinity University in 2006, she moved to New York and completed her MFA at the New York Academy of Art in 2013. She was awarded a postgraduate fellowship at the New York Academy of Art in 2013, a residency at GlogauAIR, Berlin in 2013 and a residency at the Leipzig International Art Programme in 2012. She has presented two solo exhibitions with P·P·O·W, in 2014 and 2018, and has contributed to group exhibitions throughout North America and Europe. Glaessner’s work will be on view at Perrotin Paris this fall in addition to a solo exhibition at Le Consortium, Dijon, France, February 4 – May 22, 2022.

Gallery hours Tue-Sat 10 am – 6 pm

www.ppowgallery.com

Location:
P·P·O·W
392 Broadway
10013 New York, NY
United States