Nina Childress

DOLLY

30 November 2024 – 18 January 2025

Atrata by Gil Presti
30 galerie de Montpensier
Jardin du Palais Royal
75001 Paris

DOLLY is a monographic exhibition by Nina Childress.

This exhibition highlights two portraits of the legendary American singer Dolly Parton, and a portrait of the iconic Dalida.

By revisiting the iconography of emblematic figures in popular culture, Nina Childress continues her exploration of formal painting through a play of scale, where the larger format of the first painting engages in dialogue with the intimacy of the second, smaller piece. The artist challenges aesthetic codes as well as the relationships between image, perception, and interpretation, using bold and contrasting colours.

Known for her technical mastery and innovative approach to painting materials, Nina Childress here questions the conventions of representation. Although formally similar, the two portraits of Dolly Parton reveal subtleties in their treatment, reflecting the depth and complexity of her artistic approach.

These three paintings invite reflection on the thin boundaries between kitsch and the sublime, between art and popular culture, while celebrating the visual and emotional impact of the two singers’ iconography.

Nina Childress, born in 1961 in Pasadena, USA, is a French-American artist who lives and works in Paris. Emerging from the punk movement, she began painting in 1983 and joined the Frères Ripoulin collective in 1984. In 2024, she was elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts, in the painting section.

Her work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including Lacan, l’exposition — Quand l’art rencontre la psychanalyse at the Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz, 2023; Cils Poils Cheveux at the Museum of Fine Arts, La Chaux-de-Fonds, 2022; Lobody noves me at the Fondation Pernod Ricard, Paris, 2020; L’Effet Sissi at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MAMCO), Geneva, 2011; La haute note jaune at the Fondation Van Gogh, Arles, 2024; and Futur, ancien, fugi2f at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2019.

Public collections : the Centre Pompidou, Paris; the National Center for Visual Arts (CNAP), Paris; the Museum of Modern Art, Paris; the Contemporary Art Museum of Val-de-Marne (MACVAL), Vitry-sur Seine; the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MAMCO), Geneva; the Museum of Fine Arts of La Chaux-de-Fonds.

A catalogue raisonné, 1081 Paintings, was published in 2021 on the occasion of her retrospective BODY BODY at the Frac Nouvelle-Aquitaine MÉCA, Bordeaux.

The exhibition was created in collaboration with the Art : Concept gallery, Paris. 

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