black line drawing with squiggly lines; highly abstract image; framed in white frame

%C2%A9 Chloe Piene

Wax Quintuplet, 2008

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Charcoal on vellum paperexpand_more

Gift of Mary and Bob Merskyexpand_more  2017.115.5.1

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Chloe Piene’s figurative drawings are part depiction and part emotional catharsis, essentially self-referential investigations of the body’s physical and erotic nature. Delicate and brutal, forensic and fantastic, her drawings feature spindly, agitated lines that describe highly abstracted figures set in amorphous space, here fragmentary figures showing only portions of the head and nude torso. This suite of drawings is related to Piene’s sculptural busts rendered in wax or plasteline modeling clay. Many are memento mori (reminders of death) featuring fragmentary, often skeletal forms that suggest decay and the fleeting nature of life.

Details
Title
Wax Quintuplet
Artist Life
born 1972
Role
Artist
Accession Number
2017.115.5.1
Provenance
The artist, New York & Berlin; (Ameringer Yohe Gallery, New York, sold to Mersky, June 2, 2010); Robert B. Mersky, Minneapolis; given to MIA, 2017
Curator Approved

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black line drawing with squiggly lines; highly abstract image; framed in white frame

© Chloe Piene

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