Angela Fraleigh

http://www.angelafraleigh.com

@angelafraleigh

Angela Fraleigh’s work is about how meaning gets made, and questions how cultural narratives are applied, structured, then used to shape our experiences in the world. She weaves together realism and abstraction in lush and complex works, ranging from intimate portraits to monumental figure paintings that reimagine women’s roles in art history, literature, and contemporary media. Recently, her practice has become site-specific in nature and has led to collaborations with various institutions to mine the invisible histories and dormant narratives in their collections. 

Since the mid-2000s, Fraleigh’s work has explored power dynamics related to gender, sexuality, and class through depictions of mythical and historical female figures. Baroque paintings, science fiction, fairytales, and the unwritten pages of history provide inspiration and ideas to explore. 

Fraleigh has been working with museums and historic homes to place her work in direct dialogue with the spaces and objects of the time periods from which she paints. These site-specific interventions allow for a greater conversation between past and present: they examine how people come to derive meaning from the images they encounter, and open avenues for new interpretations. In this way, Fraleigh’s work challenges and broadens the foundations of cultural and visual meaning.