Angela Fraleigh's (b. 1976, Beaufort, South Carolina) lush and complex works mine the history of academic and avant-garde painting, and are often created as site specific projects in response to the unique collections of public institutions. Our world swells… consists of five large, immersive canvases from two bodies of work. Three of the paintings were part of Fraleigh's recent solo exhibition commissioned by the Delaware Art Museum in Wilmington, Delaware. Sound the Deep Waters responded to the institution's strong holdings of Pre-Raphaelite paintings and American illustration using the lens of historical narrative art to explore contemporary issues of gender and identity.
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Our world swells like dawn, when the sun licks the water (detail) -
sound the deep waters (detail)
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Our world swells like dawn, when the sun licks the water (detail)
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Angela Fraleigh
Our world swells like dawn, when the sun licks the water, 2019
Oil and acrylic on canvas, triptych
90 x 198 in (228.6 x 502.9 cm)
AF 197
$84,000
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installation: Sound the Deep Waters, Delaware Art Museum, 2019
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Angela Fraleigh in her studio, 2019
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"What if the female characters we've come to know from art history-the lounging odalisques, the chorus that whispers in the background-present more than a voyeuristic visual feast? What if these characters embody a flickering of female power at work? Can we see these passive characters as subversive and powerful? And if we do, how might it affect women today and of the future?" – Angela Fraleigh
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Fold in the sun (detail)
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Fold in the sun (detail)
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Angela Fraleigh
Fold in the sun, 2019
Oil and acrylic on canvas
90 x 66 in (228.6 x 167.6 cm)
AF 196
$28,000
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installation: Sound the Deep Waters, Delaware Art Museum, 2019
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"Fraleigh’s painting titles meld textual references. Sound the deep waters and Where summer ripens at all hours are both drawn from Christina Rossetti’s mysterious collection Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862). Two other paintings in the exhibition cite contemporary writers—Fold in the sun from Magdalena Zurawski’s 'A Fold in the Sun' (2016) and Our world swells like dawn, when the sun licks the water from Crystal Williams’ 'The Voice of God' (2018)."
– Margaret Winslow, Curator of Contemporary Art, Delaware Art Museum -
Sound the deep waters (details)
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Sound the deep waters (details)
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Angela Fraleigh
Sound the deep waters, 2019
Oil and acrylic on canvas, triptych
90 x 198 in (228.6 x 502.9 cm)
AF 195
$84,000
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Angela Fraleigh's studio, 2019
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The ideas that form the basis of the Delaware Art Museum paintings are carried forward in Fraleigh's newest body of work, from which two paintings are on view for the first time, and created on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of a woman's right to vote. While conducting research for the Delaware Art Museum exhibition, Fraleigh came across several first edition feminist texts from the 18th and 19th centuries with unique marbled endpapers, and some with unexpected provenances. She points to one book in particular as a source of inspiration: a copy of the "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" by Mary Wollstonecraft, which featured a gift inscription to "Mrs Horace Brock with Dr Henry Biddle's respects and best wishes, January 1915". Mrs. Brock, was the President of the Pennsylvania Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage and Dr. Henry Biddle, a known suffrage supporter.
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Take root among the stars (detail)
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Angela Fraleigh
Take root among the stars, 2020
Oil and acrylic on paper adhered to canvas
90 x 66 x 1 3/8 in (228.6 x 167.6 x 3.5 cm)
AF 198
$28,000
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"I love that this gorgeous marbled cover, from a male suffrage supporter to a female anti-suffragist, came to represent something uniquely different to both of them, and that something so benign as a marbled cover could come to be a stand in for a revolutionary subversive text." – Angela Fraleigh
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With ready eyes (detail)
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Angela Fraleigh
With ready eyes, 2020
Oil and acrylic on paper adhered to canvas
66 x 90 x 1 3/8 in (167.6 x 228.6 x 3.5 cm)
AF 199
$28,000
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