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Kate Meissner
Kate Meissner’s (b. 1995, Sacramento, CA) carefully constructed oil paintings depict human subjects of highly ambiguous societal identity and material nature. In compressed, luridly-lit spaces, these bodies pose and contort, possibly for the viewer’s pleasure while potentially consumed by ecstasy or pain.
Meissner’s paintings are populated by multiple species: idealized feminine forms rendered in supple gradients, non-normative and emphatically fleshy beings with prosthetic appendages, and almost-alien creatures for whom a digitally-inflected perfection of surface becomes uncanny. Nightclub VIP rooms, hospitals, and theaters inform Meissner’s settings - all places where being seen, watched, and examined have distinct and intense psychological consequences. The figurative element is always tenuous, made strange by unnatural light, shifting depictions of skin, atypical anatomy, and highly ambiguous motivations.
These subjects might be seductive or anxiety-inducing, but they never reveal themselves as fully human. Meissner’s meticulous process draws upon many influences. Small, intricately constructed physical maquettes, found and staged photography, and digitally manipulated and created images are all utilized as source material. Meissner’s work is also highly informed by contemporary cinema - in particular, David Lynch’s color-saturated scandalous melodramas and David Cronenberg’s psychological and physical distortions of flesh. Through her fusion of traditional naturalism, technologically-derived imaging, and lush cinematic effect, Meissner explores the beautiful and grotesque in paintings that are as unnerving as they are seductive.
Kate Meissner
Shadow Play (Green), 2024
Oil on canvas
76 x 20 inches, 193 x 151 cm
Kate Meissner
Body Double, 2023
Oil on canvas
40 x 60 inches
Kate Meissner
Chromasome, 2023
Oil on canvas
70 x 50 inches
Kate Meissner
Imago, 2023
Oil on canvas
40 x 40 inches
Kate Meissner
Lure, 2023
Oil on canvas
50 x 70 inches
Kate Meissner
Second Skin, 2023
Oil on canvas
18 x 18 inches
Kate Meissner
Heat Map, 2023
Oil on canvas
44 x 40 inches
Kate Meissner
Red Velvet, 2023
Oil on canvas
62 x 30 inches
Kate Meissner
Stage Blush, 2022
Oil on canvas
70 x 55 inches
Kate Meissner
Stage Left, 2023
Oil on canvas
52 x 100 inches
Kate Meissner
Pinpoint, 2022
Oil on canvas
43 x 58 inches