Just for You: Recent Work by Cristina Vergano

In her recent exhibition at Woodward Gallery, Cristina Vergano confidently navigated between the grotesque and the absurd. Her stylistic blend was comprehensive, including influences derived from Renaissance art, Surrealism and Pop. This vivid mixture is unusual and proved to be challenging at times, as her compositions were palpably active. Dealing with feminist concerns, Vergano often depicts women as empowered beings, yet in a most unusual manner.

In “Just for You” for example, one painting showed a female body wearing a white horse’s head. Set in a Renaissance inspired landscape, this fabulous creature was holding a Magritte-esque pipe in her hand and wearing a dress made from a Roy Lichtenstein work, it’s text very legible: Pow! Sweet Dreams Baby!” Her seated pose was passive, and yet her presence radiated confidence. She wa part fable creature, part siren and the words imprinted on her dress told of her feminine powers as a source of inspiration.

Other examples revealed Vergano’s significant interest in Picasso. There were re-invented versions of Picasso’s portraits of his lovers Olga Khokhlova and Francoise Gilot, as well as of the landmark “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.” Infamously macho in his personal life, Picasso usually painted women as sensual beings and objects of desire (his portrait of Gertude Stein is one of the few exceptions), but not as overtly emancipated beings. Vergano, though adopting Picasso’s visual vocabulary, provided her figures with a clear sense of poise and allowed a touch of sassiness. In “Demoiselle,” Vergano reduced Picasso’s five Cubist figures to three realist nudes. In addition, her setting was decisively contemporary. An outdoor-pool could be seen through glass doors while mid-century design furniture established a chic interior.

In a possible nod to Egyptian deities, two of these amazons had animal heads – one, that of a dog, the other, a bird. While one woman was reclining sensually in the chair, her arms crossed behind her head, the other two were standing erect, holding African masques in their hands. While Picasso disguised his abstracted figures by adding influences from African masques, Vergano lifted the veil. Her women might have been partially abstracted through animalistic features, but they were not truly incognito. They were not hiding and were clearly accustomed to being comfortable in their skin.

In another example, a young woman who easily brought the portraits of the Neoclassical painter Angelica Kauffmann to mind, stared at us intently. As a spaceship lifted off in the background, a cartoon bubble revealed her thoughts set in mirror writing: “le meilleur des mondes possibles.” In general, Vergano’s work might not necessarily translate to all of us as a reflection of “the best of all possible worlds,” but it serves as a witty discourse into and a distillation of Today’s vast information jumble.

In two of her most radical works, Vergano portrayed two Muslim women exposing their brightly colored lingerie, which formerly had been hidden underneath their traditional garments. Both the Holy Mosque in Mecca and the Shah Mosque in Isfahan are identifiable in the backgrounds. The women were revealing themselves to us and were therefore offering a glimpse of a secret eroticism that usually remains concealed by multiple layers of traditional formalities. While these works could easily be labeled tasteless, their provocative fusion of conflicting realities was undeniably successful. They created an interesting, thought-provoking tension and ultimately that is exactly what Vergano is after.