NEW YORK, NY.- Marianne Boesky Gallery announced representation of artist Celeste Rapone in partnership with Corbett vs. Dempsey and Josh Lilley. Born in New Jersey and currently based in Chicago, Rapone is distinguished for her narrative paintings that blur the boundaries between figuration and abstraction. To commemorate the artist’s representation by the gallery, Rapone’s works will be presented in upcoming editions of Art Basel in Basel and Miami Beach.
At the core of Rapone’s practice are formalist concerns such as surface, pattern, and color that shape the artist’s inventive figures and scenes. In the artist’s paintings, the figure – often female – is the protagonist of her works. Shown contorted and twisted into impossible positions, her characters partake in moments of leisure and activity, becoming both vulnerably present and seemingly constrained within the frame of the canvas. Rapone emphasizes the act of observation in her paintings, layering autobiographical sources and art historical references that transcend appropriation in her complex compositions.
“Celeste Rapone is an artist who demonstrates incredible agility in her use of the picture plane to create self-contained worlds. Her figures and compositions, drawing from traditions such as portrait painting and still life, present the humor, anxieties, and complexities of contemporary life,” said Marianne Boesky. “We are delighted to have Celeste join the gallery and anticipate many exciting future exhibitions and projects to come.”
The artist was recently featured in Marianne Boesky Gallery’s group exhibition In Situ, which was on view January 7 – February 6, 2021 at 507 West 24th Street in New York, and January 22 – February 28, 2021 at the gallery’s Aspen location. In Situ brought together paintings created throughout 2020 that offered reflections of life in isolation as necessitated by the pandemic. Rapone’s paintings presented scenes that resonated with the current time, including a figure immersed in a beacon of light from their phone, and another lounging in solitude within a confined outdoor space. The works on view embodied a tension found between the safety of isolation and a desire to connect.
Celeste Rapone (b. 1985, New Jersey) received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2007 and her MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2013 where she is now an adjunct professor in painting and drawing. Rapone’s work has been exhibited widely across the U.S. and abroad at Josh Lilley, London; Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago; Roberts Projects, Los Angeles; The Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago and Georgia Museum of Art. Rapone was the 2018 recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. She has been the subject of recent solo exhibitions at Josh Lilley in London and Corbett vs Dempsey in Chicago where she will present a new solo exhibition in October 2021. Rapone lives and works in Chicago, IL.
