Sitting, standing or reclining Gladdys Nilsson's recent show at Garth Greenan included a series of watercolor, pencil and collage paintings on paper. Her women are bulging into and slipping out of their girdles and bras. John Yau writes in his review Gladdys Nilsson's Portrait's of Everywomanwrites
Through the medium of watercolor she has singlehandedly created a world based on close observation, but which is, as she says of Graham, “not of this world.”
It is this conundrum that is one of the primal strengths of her work and what I suspect drives some viewers away, those who want things simply and clearly spelled out for them. They run away from confusion and contradiction because they might not want to acknowledge how much of that is in their own lives. Nilsson is having none of that. Her work is weird, funny, creepy, screwball, sexual, unabashed and impolite.
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A Girl in the Arbor #8, 2013 Mixed media on paper 29 3/4 x 41 1/2 inches |
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A Girl in the Arbor #1, 2013 Mixed media on paper 41 1/2 x 29 3/4 inches |
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A Girl in the Arbor #5, 2013 Mixed media on paper 41 1/2 x 29 3/4 inches |
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Plant #2, 2010 Ink and graphite on paper collage 11 3/4 x 11 3/4 inches |
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A Girl in the Arbor #3, 2013 Mixed media on paper 41 1/2 x 29 3/4 inches |