Naudline Pierre: Enter the Realm: Gallery Exhibition at 48 & 52 Walker Street

James Cohan is pleased to present Enter the Realm, an exhibition of new work by Naudline Pierre, on view from May 14 through June 18. 

In Enter the Realm, Pierre conceives of an alternate universe populated with jewel-toned celestial figures that dance, writhe, and soar across her fantastical scenes. Brilliant and impactful color continues to illuminate this parallel world, forging links between Pierre’s various media and her recurring cast of characters. The works on view are an exquisite and extensive tale of becoming, shaped by an intensely cultivated internal fantasy life and the acknowledgment that change and metamorphosis, however uncomfortable they may be, are often necessary to reach new heights.

Action is at the center of Enter the Realm, which is itself an active command or a seductive invitation. Throughout the exhibition, Pierre endows each of her scenes with a catalyst for change; often this is an iconographic reference, imbued with greater meaning, or a powerful, yet unseen emotional state bubbling beneath her painted surfaces. Flames, for example, appear as agents of transformation in Pierre’s work, often consuming her characters in rings of multicolored fire. Yet, as Pierre assures us, they enter willingly into this inferno with the hopes of emerging born anew.

Pierre is well known for her expressive adaptations of Renaissance compositions and visual conceits, such as the altar triptych or incorporating flattened space and forced perspective. In Enter the Realm, Pierre iterates on this theme, extending her signature style of painting into the third dimension. The recognizable ritualistic structures of worship such as altarpieces, apses, and domes are transformed by epic scenes from Pierre’s imagination. Entirely adorned with paint and beings from the artist’s personal mythos, the structures on view are complete worlds unto themselves, infused with talismanic qualities designed to protect and transform.

On view at 52 Walker, a suite of works on paper provide further intimate insights into the many worlds that Pierre accesses through fantastical figuration. They echo the visual language of the paintings and sculptures found throughout the exhibition, providing hagiographic vignettes that expand upon the lives of each of the characters that populate the ever-unfolding universe that Pierre has laid out before us.

To learn more about the exhibition, visit our website  or download the Annotated Checklist.