Latvian-born and now Los Angeles-based, Ella Kruglyanskaya earned her BFA from the Cooper Union in 2001 and her MFA from Yale in 2006. Known for her often exaggerated but beautifully rendered vignettes of the female form, Looking to the Left is a prime example of the artist's exuberant style that has a set of aesthetic detours, seemingly evoking the vibrancy of mid-century fashion illustration to Magritte's 'period vache' and European expressionist painting. Far from the thin models of fashion advertising and instead harkening to source material drawing on the cinema in the 1950-60s, her women subjects are slightly caricatured and curvy, dressed in boldly chic patterns.

Left: 1950s vintage fashion advertising poster

Right: 1950s fashion advertising poster

Working in oil on canvas, Kruglyanskaya's use of bold palettes and vivid brushwork instantly grabs the viewer's attention to the female figure's outfit and her unapologetically comic-book-like expressions in Looking to the Left, weaving her character into the composition to explore the idea of personality and individuality and the fraught dynamics of social interaction. In doing so, she rejects any clear narratives but tinges it with an element of sardonic wit.

Detail of the present work

Kruglyanskaya has exhibited at White Room in New York in 2011, Studio Voltaire in London in 2014 and Tate Liverpool in 2016. She took part in the Artist in Residence studio program at the Henry Street Settlement/Abrons Art Center in New York in 2009-2010 and her work is included in the collections of the Tate Gallery, London.
- Provenance
  Gavin Brown, New York
  Private Collection
  Acquired from the above by the present owner
- Exhibited
  紐約，Gavin Brown 畫廊
  私人收藏
  現藏者購自上述來源