EWA BATHELIER
Ewa Bathelier’s experience as a costume and set designer in the theater is clearly reflected in her signature acrylic paintings. Having spent her adult life in France, the artist focuses on one of the country’s most famous cultural exports—ballet, specifically ballet attire. Light, free-floating, and symbolic, the primavera dresses, leotards, and tutus she depicts are thrown into relief by their monochrome backgrounds, though the garments conspicuously lack the bodies that are meant to inhabit them.
BIOGRAPHY EWA BATHELIER
Ewa Bathelier was born in 1962 and was predominantly influenced creatively by the 1980s. The 1980s were a turbulent time culturally, and were marked by growing global capitalism, widespread mass media, significant discrepancies in wealth, alongside a distinctive sense of music and fashion, epitomised by electronic pop music and hip hop. Artists growing up during this time were heavily influenced by this cultural atmosphere. The 1980s were a significant decade politically, marked by the African Famine and the end of the Cold War, which was signified by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Neo Geo and The Pictures Generation became prominent art movements during the decade, alongside Neo-Expressionism which became well-known in Germany, France and Italy (where it was known as Transavanguardia). Artists such as Anselm Kiefer, Jörg Immendorf, Enzo Cucchi, Francesco Clemente and Julian Schnabel were leading artists of the era, alongside Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and Kenny Scharf, who established the street art and graffiti movements.
Transatlantic dress, 2019
Acrylic on cloth
80 7/10 × 78 7/10 in
205 × 200 cm