Jamian Juliano-Villani - Under the Influence London Sunday, April 12, 2015 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Private Collection

  • Catalogue Essay

    Jamian Juliano-Villani is an American artist whose auspicious notoriety has gained momentum within the contemporary art world due to her whimsically dark canvases as well as her views and usage of appropriation. The artist explains, “It's important to realize that all visual culture is fair game for artistic content, ‘appropriation' isn't a ‘kind' of work, it's almost all art. When making a painting or a print or a sculpture, it's nearly impossible to make something without thinking of something else. A good reminder that when dealing with images 1) once an image is used, it isn't dead. It can be recontextualised, redistributed, reimagined. 2) It should have several lives and exist in different scenarios.” Utilising appropriation as a way to draw attention and pay homage to artists she admires, Villani also wishes to create an easily read, inclusive language that does not alienate her viewers, but rather one that allows them to become passive, as if they are watching TV. In order to achieve this Villani employs cartoon-like illustration, viewing it as a powerful form of communication – one which is relatable and does not require a surrounding discourse in order to understand. Beginning with an idea in her mind, Villani conducts around twenty hours of research to source images, all of which the artist archives for a future project, before creating her emotive scenes. These works are personal but remain open-ended allowing for recognition within the viewer that something else is going on that is not immediately obvious. The images, characters and references Villani uses are done so to encourage a re-evaluation of their original creator, but also to serve as a self-reflexive vehicle through which she can draw attention to the artificiality of the art world. It is important to Villani that she concurrently pays homage and exploits the image within her work so as to simultaneously revive the original image and to draw attention to the ironic and mysterious recontextulisation it has undergone.

12

The Man from Bozrah

2014
acrylic on canvas
76 x 101.8 cm (29 7/8 x 40 1/8 in.)
Signed, titled and dated 'JAMIAN JULIANO-VILLANI 2014 THE MAN FROM BOZRAH' on the stretcher.

Estimate
£3,000 - 5,000 

Sold for £18,750

Contact Specialist
Tamila Kerimova
Head of Under the Influence, London
+44 207 318 4065

Under the Influence

London Auction 13 April 2015  4pm