Details:

This artwork shows a male viewer standing before the famous painting Judith and Her Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes (c. 1623-1625) by female Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi. As a Detroit native, the artist encountered this work on view in the Detroit Institute of Arts' collection and incorporated it into her painting to raise questions about the male gaze and power.
Unframed
This artwork is currently on view in a special exhibition and will ship by September 8, 2023.

① Artwork:

Figure ft. Artemisia Gentileschi

This artwork shows a male viewer standing before the famous painting Judith and Her Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes (c. 1623-1625) by female Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi. As a Detroit native, the artist encountered this work on view in the Detroit Institute of Arts' collection and incorporated it into her painting to raise questions about the male gaze and power.

Like many paintings in this series, Alexis Pye recreates cinematic or artistic tropes but intentionally places Black figures in their leading roles as the protagonists. Her practice explores the tradition of portraiture through the Black body as seen outside its social constructs. Her formal strategies integrate mixed media with painting, embroidery and punch-stitch needlework.

Specs:

24 inches
38 inches

③ Artist:

Alexis Pye

Alexis Pye’s practice explores the tradition of portraiture as a way to express the Black body outside of its social constructs. By placing her subjects in leisurely, luscious, nature-rich, and even fantastical settings, her artworks evoke a unique playfulness, wonder, Blackness, and joy amidst adversity. Her formal strategies integrate mixed media with painting, embroidery and punch-stitch needlework.

Alexis Pye was born in 1995 in Detroit, MI, and resides in Houston, TX. She received her BFA in Painting from the University of Houston in Houston, TX (2018).

Pye has mounted solo exhibitions at the Lawndale Art Center in Houston, TX (2023), and Inman Gallery in Houston, TX (2021).

She was also included in group shows such as Mythofuturiddim at Winter Street Studios in Houston, TX (2022); Houston Rockets x CAMH at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston in Houston, TX (2022); My Mirror Is Fine, curated by Miles Payne at the Community Artists Collective in Houston, TX; and Animal Crossing at Inman Gallery, Houston TX (2022).

Alexis Pye:
Figure ft. Artemisia Gentileschi, 2022
Oil, oil pastel on canvas
38.0 × 24.0 inches /