BLACK ARTISTS, BLACK MODELS: A Selling Exhibition

Stephen Applebly-Barr creates oil paintings and etchings that call to mind Old Masters but with a postmodern twist. Inspired by the dramatic works of Rembrandt, Goya, Velázquez, and others, Appleby-Barr inserts elements of personal significance—his acquaintances and collection of artifacts—into historical tableaux to create new narratives that bounce between past and present, reality and fantasy. Rife with arcane references, sci-fi allusions, and comic touches, his work at once embraces classical art while simultaneously subverting it. By inserting people he knows and secret symbols into centuries old mises en scène, each painting’s story speaks to the power of personal mythologies and the importance of capturing and preserving such legacies.

“I met Amz while leaning out of my studio window in Stoke Newington. We got to talking and smoking. He was a designer and model from London and we got into a conversation about painting. We stayed in touch and at some point I asked if he’d consider sitting for a portrait. Amz was into it and we had the sitting the following week. I had different costumes lying around and this is what we went with. For the pose we were looking at a book of Fragonard’s fantasy portraits. The ones where he dressed up a bunch of his friends in dated period garb (citation below). We tried all kinds of setups and poses but them Amz shoots me this look and that was it.”---Stephen Appleby-Barr

Courtesy of the Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto