The Leslie Tonkonow Artworks and Projects gallery in Chelsea is currently featuring a series of gouache paintings by Amy Cutler in an exhibition titled Brood. For this show, Cutler offers portraits of several women created through her imagination, and gives them character and highlights each woman’s persona evident through her facial expressions and physical appearance. The artist elaborates on these characters by conjuring up stories in her mind about them explaining that “Once [the characters] are established, I am able to dress them and to move forward with the development of the story.”
Cutler names each of her creations such as Marika illustrating a woman possibly in her late thirties wearing a beautiful shirt decorated with light green and turquoise flowers and an expression on her face suggesting that she is somewhat bored. Similarly, the character Sabine depicts a woman possibly in her forties or fifties, wearing a light blue blouse and rolling her eyes looking unimpressed. Another character known as Lena is a portrait of a sophisticated, upper-class woman wearing a jacket with a fur collar with her head held high and her dark red lips pursed tightly together.
All these women are shown from the chest up and all showcase similar hairstyles of red or strawberry-blonde hair tied up in a bun. Cutler uses a special type of Japanese paper for this show to further enhance each woman’s radiance to help bring her to life. At Leslie Tonkonow Artworks and Projects, 535 W. 22 St., 6th floor, through Mar. 9. The gallery is open from Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m.
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