Treat Yo Self
- Treat Yo Self
Mixed media on panel, 2020
I created Treat Yo Self for the 2020 Frieze LA art fair. I had a solo booth with my gallery, Vielmetter Los Angeles, titled Look At Them Look At Us, in which I presented a selection of new photographs, sculptures, and collages. I often utilize humor in my work or titles to touch on deeper issues. I was referencing Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian and all its accompanying associations, of course, but coming at it from a personal and female perspective.
Vintage imagery functions in my work as a vehicle to place the viewer in the mindset of home and domesticity. The wallpaper here is a reference to our past and, for me, a key component to unpacking the complexities of everyday life. [End Page 166]
genevieve gaignard is a Los Angeles–based multidisciplinary artist whose work focuses on installation, sculpture, collage, and photographic self-portraiture to explore race, femininity, and class. As a biracial woman in America, she investigates the aesthetic and cultural divide between black and white, a chasm as palpable as it is “invisible.” She interrogates notions of passing by positioning her own female body as the chief site of exploration—challenging viewers to navigate the powers and anxieties of intersectional identity. Her work has been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions, at venues including the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, and the California African American Museum. She received her BFA in photography from Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and her MFA in photography from Yale University. *
