Details:
① Artwork:
Floor 3 (Pink Street)
This painting depicts an anonymous female teenager in an anxiety-induced yet euphoric state of inebriation. The elements of this work—including its composition and pacing—emphasize the instability of the figure as she loses control over her body. The artist builds this painting through layers, each one depicting a frame of a found video. The artist paints each still over the last, eventually producing a final painting where the trauma of the actions is covered, yet ever-present.
By painting each frame of the found video, Bitran expands time and analyzes each microsecond of the figure's actions. This work is part of a series by the artist that explores this technique. Bitran employs a wide range of painting strategies that both glorify and enshrine the vulgarity of each scene. The results are affected and thick surfaces loaded with the poses of the young and disoriented bodies in the found videos. The final paintings are a ghostly metamorphosis of the source material.
Alongside the paintings, Bitran produces animations that serve as documentation of the evolving stages of each composition. This empathetic process pulls back the curtain on the steps involved in the creation of these paintings—revealing the once concealed horror inherent in the subject matter.
Specs:
③ Artist:
Claudia Bitran, working primarily in painting and video, frequently uses DIY aesthetics to represent the hyperbolic worlds of social media and popular culture. The artist employs a wide range of painting strategies to metamorphosize her source material, resulting in dense and thick surfaces that transform the content of the artist’s videos. Bitran’s work invites viewers to empathize with the figures they depict—while simultaneously exploring how images become part of the endless cycle of mass consumption that happens online.
BIO:
Claudia Bitran, born in 1986, holds an MFA in Painting from Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island (2013) and a BFA from the Universidad Catolica de Chile in Santiago, Chile (2009).
Solo exhibitions of Bitran’s work have taken place at: Walter Storms Galerie in Munich, Germany (2020-2021); Spring Break Art Show in New York City (2020), Muhlenberg College Gallery in Allentown, Pennsylvania (2018-2019); Practice Gallery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (2018); the Brooklyn Bridge Park in New York City (2018); Roswell Museum and Art Center in Roswell, New Mexico (2017), and the Museo de Artes Visuales in Santiago, Chile (2016).
Bitran has completed residencies at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in New York City (2014); the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Nebraska (2014); the Roswell Artist-in-Residence Program in Roswell, New Mexico (2016); the Smack Mellon Studio Program in Brooklyn, New York (2017); Outpost Projects in Flamingo Heights, California (2018); and Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, New York (2020-2021).
Bitran has received numerous grants and awards, including: The New York Trust Van Lier Fellowship; the Hammersley Grant, the Emergency Grant for Artists — Foundation for Contemporary Arts; the Jerome Foundation Grant for Emerging Filmmakers; the 1st Prize Britney Spears Dance Challenge; the 1st Prize UFO McDonald’s Painting Competition; and 1st honorable mention at Bienal de Artes Mediales from the Museo de Bellas Artes in Santiago, Chile.
Bitran’s studio is in Brooklyn, New York.
④ Additional:
This painting depicts an anonymous female teenager in an anxiety-induced yet euphoric state of inebriation. The artist builds this painting through layers, each one depicting a frame of a found video—eventually producing a final painting where the trauma of the actions is covered, yet ever-present.More
- Unframed
