Ella Kruglyanskaya - 20th Century & Contemporary Art & Design Day Sale in association with Yongle Hong Kong Tuesday, November 29, 2022 | Phillips
  • 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

138

Lot offered with No Reserve

Looking to the Left

oil on linen
228.6 x 181.9 cm. (90 x 71 5/8 in.)
Painted in 2017.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
HK$150,000 - 250,000 
€18,300-30,600
$19,200-32,100

Sold for HK$378,000

Contact Specialist

Danielle So
Specialist, Head of Day Sale
+852 2318 2027
danielleso@phillips.com

20th Century & Contemporary Art & Design Day Sale in association with Yongle

Hong Kong Auction 30 November 2022