Annie Lapin: The Unwild
Annie Lapin’s paintings reside in a world of multiplicities; digital histories and analog mark making come together to form landscapes that abide neither to the rules of the virtual nor to the physical. Initiating each painting with generous pours of paint and liquid graphite, Lapin’s abstract marks become the armature around which pictorial space is built. Punched with trompe l’oeil forms, photographic blur, and references to the sublime imagery of Western landscape painting and photography, the polyvalent scenes conjure a sense of mystery and fervor.
Seemingly representational and highly rendered imagery such as forests or figures merge jarringly with the abstract. An abstract form will quickly become part of a body or the extension of land. Polychromatic skyscapes—sourced both from the artist’s photo archive and visual media online—are rendered with hyper-realistic detail, while figures are consumed into epic environments that emerge from color fields. These various references coalesce into a fractured yet coherent depiction of our world, creating an experience akin to our own perception: one that is littered with conflicting information that must logically connect. Lapin shares, “I imagine painting not as a representation of a place or thing, but rather an image of our longing to understand our world, which builds on and defines itself over time, like the contours of our historical narratives and myths."
Annie Lapin (b. 1978, Washington, D.C.; Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA) received her Master of Fine Arts from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2007, her Post-Baccalaureate Certificate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2004, and her Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale University in 2001. Select solo exhibitions include Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, CA; Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY; Josh Lilley, London, England; Annarumma Gallery, Naples, Italy; Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC; Honor Fraser, Los Angeles, CA; Yautepec Gallery, Mexico City, Mexico; and Museum of Contemporary Art, Santa Barbara, CA. Group exhibitions include the USC Fisher Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Bruce Museum, Greenwich, CT; Hilger Contemporary, Vienna, Austria; Museo di Capodimonte, Naples, Italy; Sargent’s Daughters, New York, NY; LA Louver, Los Angeles, CA; and the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY.
Lapin is the recipient of the Falk Visiting Artist Award at the Weatherspoon Art Museum in Greensboro, NC and she has been awarded residencies at Anderson Ranch Art Center, Snowmass Village, CO; Grand Arts, Kansas, MO; Burren College of Art, Ballyvaughn, Ireland; and Chautauqua Institute, New York, NY. Her work has been featured in Art in America, Modern Painters, Los Angeles Times, Harper’s Magazine, Art and Antiquities, Artnews, Hyperallergic, Artsy, and New American Paintings.
Annie Lapin’s work is included in the permanent collections of the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; The Carolyn Campagna Kleefeld Contemporary Art Museum at California State University, Long Beach, CA; Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, KS; Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA; Rubell Family Collection, Miami, FL; Santa Barbara Museum, Santa Barbara, CA; Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC; and Zabludowicz Collection, London, England.