Genieve Figgis (born 1972) is an Irish artist who started her artistic career using social media. She is known for her vibrant colors and ghoulish or macabre imagery. According to an article in ''Flaunt'' magazine: "Her unique brand of painting—which uses acrylics “slathered heavily” on canvas and often references works of the canon as viewed through a melted macabre filter—is at once classical and utterly contemporary."

Education

Figgis graduated in 2006 from the Gorey School of Art in Wexford with a Bachelor in Fine Arts. She completed her studies in 2012 with a Masters of Fine Arts at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, Ireland.

Early career

Figgis' use of Twitter to display her artwork in 2014 caught the attention of American artist Richard Prince and introduced Figgis into the New York art scene. Olivia Parkes writes "An unconventional rising art star, she started her family before she started art school, and received recognition for her work online before the gallery world caught up. It's the kind of story that makes you love the internet: for bringing us the good stuff, faster than we would have gotten it otherwise." Figgis made her American debut exhibition at Harpers Books in

East Hampton, New York The Town of East Hampton is located in southeastern Suffolk County, New York, at the eastern end of the South Shore of Long Island. It is the easternmost town in the state of New York. At the time of the 2020 United States census, it had a total ...

in the summer of 2014 while also publishing her first book at the same time titled ''Making Love With the Devil.'' Since 2015, she is represented by Almine Rech Gallery. From the outset, Figgis has played with the culture of upper class luxury culture portrayed in the art canon by artists such as

Diego Velázquez Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (baptized June 6, 1599August 6, 1660) was a Spanish painter, the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV of Spain and Portugal, and of the Spanish Golden Age. He was an individualistic artist of th ...

, Francisco Goya, Fragonard, Édouard Manet, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, James Ensor and

François Boucher François Boucher ( , ; ; 29 September 1703 – 30 May 1770) was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher, who worked in the Rococo style. Boucher is known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories ...

Style

Figgis' style strikes a balance between figuration and abstraction. Her paintings are reminiscent of 18th century

Rococo style Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...

as she recreates cheery Victorian photographs, and paintings with thick paint, causing the subjects to appear as melting, zombie-like creatures. Figgis values the use of paint for its ability to surprise, and is the medium she uses to form her figures of drips and swirls giving them a ghoulish imagery in her paintings. Her paintings technique involves dripping paint onto a canvas allowing gravity and colour-bleeding along to do most of the work with subtle surface marks to create specific details and textures. She cites

Marlene Dumas Marlene Dumas (born 3 August 1953) is a South African artist and painter currently based in the Netherlands. Life and work Dumas was born in 1953 in Cape Town, South Africa and grew up in Kuils River in the Western Cape, where her father had ...

Cecily Brown Cecily Brown (born 1969) is a British painter. Her style displays the influence of a variety of contemporary painters, from Willem de Kooning, Francis BaconScott, Sue (2013). "Cecily Brown" in ''The Reckoning: Women Artists of the New Millennium ...

and

Jenny Saville Jennifer Anne Saville (born 7 May 1970) is a contemporary British painter and an original member of the Young British Artists.Royal Academy of ArtsJenny Saville RA , Artist , Royal Academy of Arts accessdate: 29 August 2014 Saville works and ...

as her heroes. Her work has been influenced by growing up in Ireland with the rules of the Catholic Church and the scenic countryside she is surrounded by in her everyday life, living in

County Wicklow County Wicklow ( ; ga, Contae Chill Mhantáin ) is a county in Ireland. The last of the traditional 32 counties, having been formed as late as 1606, it is part of the Eastern and Midland Region and the province of Leinster. It is bordered by t ...

. Figgis believes having a knowledge of a Spirit and becoming one with nature allows one to become more connected with the Earth's energy. This expression of spiritual beliefs can be seen through her works with her use of rich colors that "bubble, ooze and marbleize as if alive." Figgis painted a version of

Leda and the Swan Leda and the Swan is a story and subject in art from Greek mythology in which the god Zeus, in the form of a swan, seduces or rapes Leda. According to later Greek mythology, Leda bore Helen and Polydeuces, children of Zeus, while at the sa ...

in 2018 after an earlier work by

. Figgis’ contemporary version reinvents an idyllic romantic scene of lavish playfulness with a dark humor creating a scene of profanity and horror.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Figgis, Genieve 1972 births Living people 21st-century Irish painters 21st-century Irish women artists Irish contemporary artists Alumni of the National College of Art and Design Artists from Dublin (city)