Ahern’s work has long been centred on portraiture, where she seamlessly combines icons of pop culture with figures from her private life. Exploring the traditions of portraiture and allowing personal connections to transcend conventional genres.
NTRO Output Category
- Original Creative Work : Visual artwork
Place
Melbourne, AustraliaVenue
Neon ParcNTRO Publisher
https://neonparc.com.au/exhibitions/queen-bitchMedium
oil paintingResearch Statement
Conceptual painting practices privilege the idea generating the artwork over the art-object itself. Explorations of time, portaiture and fandom as both subject and material an engaging pre-occupation in the field of contemporary art. Ahern’s work has long been centred on portraiture, where she seamlessly combines icons of pop culture with figures from her private life. Exploring the traditions of portraiture and allowing personal connections to transcend conventional genres, expanding in the vacuum of anonymity that media culture perpetuates in a global economy of images. Ahern’s innovative painting methodology creates a new representation of intimacy.
The 12 double sided oil paintings (24 total painted images) exhibited in “Queen Bitch” engage album cover art and personal imagery. Extending a long term obsession with painted album covers, 'Queen Bitch' introduces a new medium, copper plates, as the base for new works. Historically tied to religious art and two-sided devotional paintings of the 1500s, the hand-polished copper surfaces deepens the Artist’s ongoing engagement with the subjectivities of fandom and makes a unique contribution to the field of conceptual painting.
Resolving the display of double sided paintings, carefully handled and turned for the viewer by invigilators within the space, in a performative way, innovative in the engagement of the viewer and contributing to the concept of ceremony and iconography.
Queen Bitch makes a significant contribution to the field of conceptual painting through the development and execution of a new conceptual framework. By painting on copper, a medium historically associated with religious art, Ahern positions her works as objects of worship rather than vinyl records. The value of this work is attested to by its solo exhibition at Neon Parc Gallery, Melbourne. Neon Parc is an internationally respected commercial gallery that often participates in prestigious international art fairs including Freize, Art Basel, and Art Berlin. The work acquired in private collections and the exhibition gained significant critical attention prompting invites to both Melbourne and Sydney Art fairs in 2025.Size or Duration of Work
24 paintings, obverse and reverse of 12 ( 30cm x30cm) copper sheets
