"When I first arrived (at New York Academy of Art), I wanted to make work about the body and body dysmorphia," Maud Madsen told us last summer. "My time at the Academy had a huge impact on my work. I was constantly being pushed by advisors to consider both the formal and conceptual aspects of my work." Now Madsen is fully coming into her own as a painter. Right now, she is showing, Daisy Chain at Marianne Boesky Gallery, a reflective look at the female body and environments around them.
As the gallery notes, "While the paintings’ surroundings recall feelings of child-like exploration, the bodies of women characters are mature and grounded to further map the often-awkward transitions of adolescence. The obscured faces in each painting leave space for ambiguity: subjects are seemingly unaware of the viewer and the onlooker is left room to see themselves in the figure. Madsen focuses on the female body to rewrite the memories of her past and give the women in her images room to be on display. Although beginning from a personal place, the artist constructs spaces in which insecurity, empowerment, and the tension of the real and imagined can coalesce to allow for collective reflection."
