TATJANA PIETERS is pleased to invite you ‘Welcome to the Dollhouse’, an intimate front room presentation of recent work by Mae Dessauvage. The project celebrates the launch of the first publication on Mae Dessauvage’s work, published by Blurring Books, NY.
The works included in the show depict intimate scenes based on historic iconography and the artist’s transgender experiences. Looking to early renaissance painters such as Giotto and Piero Della Francesca, Dessauvage’s practice re -interprets the narrative relationship between figures and symbolic objects. The androgynous figures in her paintings exist in a state of ambiguity along with abstracted artifacts like pyxes, cloaks, mirrors, skulls, and daggers. In the past, such symbolic objects would serve as signifiers of saints. With timid expressions and hesitant gestures, the figures in her paintings are instead uncertain about these objects, reflecting our uncertain relationship to history. Dessavauge’s work is based on iconography and her personal experience as a transgender woman. Drawing parallels between medieval painting, postmodern architecture and contemporary comics, she re-defines their visual languages to create new psychological narratives.
Mae Dessauvage (BE, 1995) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Brussels, Belgium and Brooklyn, New York. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Columbia University (2017) and a Master in Architecture from Harvard University (2021). Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at Tiger Strikes Asteroid (US), Eleventh Hour Art (US), TATJANA PIETERS (BE), Kirkland Gallery (US) and Artspace Richmond (US). She has been an artist in residence at Trestle Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), PADA studios (Lisbon, PT) & The Green Corridor (Brussels, BE). Recent solo shows include ‘Oh, The Ripe Air!’ at TATJANA PIETERS & ‘The Sleeping Hermaphrodite’ at The Green Corridor (Brussels, BE). Her work is part of the group exhibition ‘Painting after Painting’ at S.M.A.K., the Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art in Ghent (BE).
