- Artist/Maker:
- Ilana Savdie
- Bio:
- American and Colombian, b. 1986
- Title:
- Cow
- Date:
- 2023
- Medium:
- Oil, acrylic, and beeswax on canvas stretched on panel
- Dimensions:
- 65 1/8 × 80 1/8 in. (165.4 × 203.5 cm)
- Credit Line:
- Purchase: Romie and Blanche Shapiro Estates, Arts Acquisition Committee Fund, Roberta Pfeufer Kahn Trust, and Helfman Contemporary Art Acquisition Fund
- Accession Number:
- 2023-115
Not On View
Ilana Savdie uses chromatic saturation and density of imagery as strategies to complicate figuration. Her signature palette combines luminous fluorescent colors that contrast with shocking deep, rich hues. Although Savdie’s works center on the body, and her canvases deal with figures, they put forth only phantom fragments of realism. Glimpses of torsos and limbs are drenched in sweeping flows of leaky paint, broad-brushed gleaming color, and dimpled, skinlike textures created with wax. The effect sows both confusion and intrigue, sparking attraction and repulsion through brightly hued yet grotesque details drawn largely from the biological world.
A particular interest in Savdie’s new body of work is the dynamic between predator and prey, autonomy and forced dependence—emblematic of not only hierarchical power structures but also interconnected relationships. Familial legacies of the Jewish diaspora inform her exploration of placelessness in her canvases. Savdie’s family emigrated variously from Egypt, Lebanon, Romania, Poland, and Venezuela as the result of conflicts and expulsions, ultimately arriving in Colombia. Drawing on such upheaval and cultural fluidity, she is able to balance multiple contexts and traditions. Savdie leverages an enveloping scale and dynamic, gestural forms, inviting the viewer to examine intricate details from a state of near disorientation. This environment—teeming with colors, patterns, and textures—is a space of questioning where desire and resolution are perpetually at odds, colliding and coalescing.
The idea for this painting, the first in a new body of work, was born from Savdie’s encounter with Mary III (1974) by the late-twentieth-century painter Susan Rothenberg. Rothenberg is best known for her paintings of horses, but in Mary III she pictures a person crouched on all fours.This submissive yet strategic posture sparked Savdie’s Cow, highlighting how there is power and dynamism in the abject—rejecting or being rejected by societal norms. The artist accesses a primal emotional state through a human form that embodies animalistic behaviors.
A particular interest in Savdie’s new body of work is the dynamic between predator and prey, autonomy and forced dependence—emblematic of not only hierarchical power structures but also interconnected relationships. Familial legacies of the Jewish diaspora inform her exploration of placelessness in her canvases. Savdie’s family emigrated variously from Egypt, Lebanon, Romania, Poland, and Venezuela as the result of conflicts and expulsions, ultimately arriving in Colombia. Drawing on such upheaval and cultural fluidity, she is able to balance multiple contexts and traditions. Savdie leverages an enveloping scale and dynamic, gestural forms, inviting the viewer to examine intricate details from a state of near disorientation. This environment—teeming with colors, patterns, and textures—is a space of questioning where desire and resolution are perpetually at odds, colliding and coalescing.
The idea for this painting, the first in a new body of work, was born from Savdie’s encounter with Mary III (1974) by the late-twentieth-century painter Susan Rothenberg. Rothenberg is best known for her paintings of horses, but in Mary III she pictures a person crouched on all fours.This submissive yet strategic posture sparked Savdie’s Cow, highlighting how there is power and dynamism in the abject—rejecting or being rejected by societal norms. The artist accesses a primal emotional state through a human form that embodies animalistic behaviors.
Information may change as a result of ongoing research.