Naudline Pierre: May the Light Reach You

Naudline Pierre conjures fantastical worlds full of movement, transformation, and emotion. Her artwork features airy figures among delicate, jewel-toned washes of color, swirling lines, and skillful application of paint or ink, as well as adventurous experimentation with metal. The content of Pierre’s work is deeply intimate, with a pantheon of female spirits conveying an impressive range of expression—from anger to resilience, tenderness, and more. She calls on viewers to imagine their way into her unfamiliar realities, and thereby to imagine how their own reality might also change and grow.

In creating her work, Pierre mines classical European art for its conventions and compositions. Starting from some of history’s most famous artworks, she taps into the longstanding foundations that make images compelling and culturally resonant, while turning those themes and structures toward her own invented mythology. In this way, her creations may draw on and directly resemble the form and potency of Renaissance frescoes or Baroque altarpieces, but in support of entirely new subjects and narratives. These connections add strength to Pierre’s work, yet her new worlds remain entirely her own. They are places where, she says, “I hold the power and get to do whatever I want.”

This exhibition of Pierre’s paintings, sculptures, and works on paper will include artwork from as early as 2019, as well as a significant number of new works created specifically for our presentation. Following previous exhibitions at The Drawing Center in New York City and the Dallas Museum of Art in Texas, this will be Pierre’s largest and most ambitious showing to date.