Boston Globe: Porn stars are powerful in this artist’s eyes
February 20, 2019
PROVIDENCE — We nurse certain notions about power and painting, reluctant to scrutinize them. Along comes painter Caitlin Cherry to yank the pacifier from our mouths.
For her show “Dirtypower” at Providence College Galleries, Cherry bases her paintings on photo shoots of black porn stars and exotic dancers. She heroicizes women stereotypically easy to pigeonhole, objectify, or dismiss. She calls them “leviathans,” connoting powerful, mythic beasts — and objects of our dark projections. An artist’s talk is set for Feb. 27 at 6 p.m.
Cherry and her contemporaries, such as Celia Hempton and Laura Owens, grapple with paintings as screens, abandoning the old trope of paintings as windows. Screens are more insular; we more often find ourselves in their thrall.
