Press release
Baldwin Gallery is pleased to present new work by Ana Benaroya, whose practice engages the persistent power of imagery, memory, and the body as sites of abstraction, resistance, and desire.
Benaroya’s paintings depict confident, hyperphysical women who smoke, drink, dance, and cavort — figures that directly refute the male gaze. Muscular, exaggerated, and intensely colored, her women evoke comic book superheroes and bodybuilders while drawing lineage from artists such as Tom of Finland, Peter Saul, Robert Colescott, and Carroll Dunham. Existing in a world devoid of men, their sensuality is self-possessed and unapologetic, charged with humor, desire, and subversion.
Benaroya’s work dissolves binaries between male and female form, seriousness and satire, pleasure and aggression. Her figures — often nude, always commanding — project lesbian desire and bodily confidence, engaging the viewer on their own terms. Humor functions as both weapon and invitation, destabilizing expectations around sexuality, power, and representation.
Born in 1986, Benaroya received her BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and her MFA from the Yale School of Art. She recently presented a solo exhibition at The FLAG Art Foundation in New York City. Her work is held in the collections of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; Pérez Art Museum Miami; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Zuzeum Art Centre, Riga; Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection; and the Hall Art Foundation.
Images are available upon request. Please call 970.920.9797 for further information.