Somaya Critchlow

Somaya CritchlowÆs canvases and sketchbooks log an ongoing process of world building. The artist fashions these realms by drawing upon her expansive knowledge ofpicture-making traditions ranging from the Renaissance to the Rococo. In chartingthe ever-expanding dimensions of this female dominated universe, Critchlow casuallydisarms the distinctions that inform concepts of high and low culture by uncoveringthe ways in which class and racial difference are routinely conflated. The voluptuous, self-possessed women who explore CritchlowÆs fantasy landscapes and pensivelyoccupy domestic interiors or otherwise blank pages owe as much to the aestheticsof Love and Hip Hop as they do to Peter Paul Rubens, and thus prompt the viewerto consider the disparate ways in which we esteem these forms of cultureùand thewomen they feature.
Paintings includes a newly commissioned scholarly text by Amanda Renshaw.