Seductive Reasoning

Rachel Deacon desires to tell the story of sensual and powerful women in her paintings. Like Paula Rego and Frida Kahlo, she excludes unnecessary detail in her compositions to build with narrative and symbol. “I love the ambiguity in their work, that sense that there’s something deeper going on,” she says. This is how she imbues her luminous oil paintings with mystery and enigma. Her multi-layered work makes no apology for being erotic, and she enjoys celebrating women’s sexuality and reflecting their power and tenacity.

Jack Gerber, born 1927, is influenced by Expressionism and utilizes a vibrant color palette and rounded gestural strokes to produce his emotional works. His desire to capture everyday life and infuse it with color and energy invite the viewer to experience each scene and spend time moving from one shape to the next as his story is told . "Arranged in couples and groups, Gerber's characters are not isolated against stark backgrounds. Rather, their bodies overlap one another, arranged so as to create a continuous pattern. His work is reminiscent of Max Beckmann's, a German Expressionist artist whose dense, figurative canvases were similarly filled with implied narrative. "