About
Through portraits, scenic paintings or sculptural installations, Schiele presents conspiring groups of women or solitary female figures playing by their own rules. Their depiction subverts and defies genres of idealized classic beauty with bold stares, uninhibited bodies and good-for-nothing behavior. Set against dazzling workrooms or holiday scenes, the characters are drawn with a graphic line against expressionistic backdrops. They are generated from live drawing sessions, paintings of Flemish maidens or porcelain miniatures depicting court life for rivaling empires. These new courtiers redefine expectations of femininity by wearing masks and skulls drawn from Sci-Fi avatars, Japanese animation, Norwegian death metal or any century of historical ceremonial masks. As a wolf pack or lone star, they are in charge of the narrative, albeit one lacking in decorum.