ANNA OSTOYA – SLAYING

Posted on 2016-03-07

The original painting depicts the story of Judith, a Jewish widow who saves her people besieged by the Assyrian army. With the help of her maidservant, she plies Holofernes, the army general, with alcohol and then beheads him in his drunken state. In these new paintings, Ostoya inspects the crime scene, analyzing it through geometrical abstraction. She substitutes Judith for Holofernes, in Judith Slaying Judith, and Holofernes for Judith, in Holofernes Slaying Holofernes. Each figure attacks itself. These large canvases are accompanied by smaller ones where the artist further analyzes the scene.
In Slain Trances, a series of black and white photomontages, Ostoya’s investigation becomes more associative than analytical. She transforms the original painting through surrealist juxtapositions. Gentileschi’s Judith Slaying Holofernes collides with other examples of her work as well as with a painting by Georgia O’Keeffe, a sculpture by Pablo Picasso, a still from Possession, a snapshot of Ostoya as a teenager, a propaganda leaflet, a war photo, and images of a robot, an African mask and the gallery. Some photomontages are scraped and painted over, then re-photographed to generate yet other photomontages.

Opposite – Judith Slaying Judith, 2016

Exhibition runs through till April 23rd, 2016

Bortolami Gallery
520 W 20th Street
NY 10011 New York
USA

bortolamigallery.com