Culture Country

"Culture Country"

from Saturday, December 9, 2023 to Saturday, February 3, 2024

Galerie XII Los Angeles

A young artist based in New Mexico, this is her first personal show in California.
Selected works from Vivian Haesloop's Vanderpump Revealed and Golden Cows series - On display at Galerie XII in Santa Monica until 2/10/24. Both series attempt to take images which wouldn't be perceived as "beautiful" in their ordinary context, reality TV and Google search results, and reveal those images' hidden beauty via the alchemy of oil on canvas. In this way, both series have a transgressive element, since these are the kinds of subjects we might reflexively consider unworthy of Haesloop’s large canvases, let alone gold leaf – subjects that are too low brow, too ubiquitous to merit the attention of a painter. But to Haesloop, the conventional subjects of oil paintings are just the art world's golden cows. You'll walk away from Haesloop's exhibit looking at the world through new eyes, and the next time you pause your favorite guilty-pleasure show or search google, you won't be able to look at the image on your screen the same way you did before seeing her work.