Ana Benaroya in her Jersey City, NJ studio. Photo by Nicholas Calcott
W Magazine
Studio Visit: Inside Ana Benaroya's Studio, Where the Women Have No Shame
Venus Over Manhattan’s first pick for its new downtown outpost showcasing younger artists would rather talk lesbian desire than the female gaze.
A few years ago, Ana Benaroya received what she considers the ultimate compliment. “Saw this young artist’s work recently,” the renowned painter Katherine Bradford wrote in an Instagram post about one of Benaroya’s paintings. “Now have to completely rethink nipples.” It was, Benaroya recalls when I stop by her studio in Jersey City, “the ideal validation.”
Ana Benaroya, Save Your Love For Someone Like Me, 2021, Spray paint, acrylic paint and oil paint on canvas, 59 x 47 1/4 in 149.9 x 120 cm
Ana Benaroya, Undercover Angel, Midnight Fantasy, 2021, Oil on canvas, 59 1/4 x 71 150.5 x 180.3
Ana Benaroya, Wouldn’t It Be Nice, 2021, Spray paint, acrylic paint, and oil paint on canvas, 84 x 72 in 213.4 x 182.9 cm
Ana Benaroya in her favorite jumpsuit at her studio in Jersey City, NJ. Photo by Blaine Davis.
Ana Benaroya’s (b. 1986, New York, NY) work centers substantial female subjects, whose extravagant musculatures upset more traditional expectations of femininity. Through her paintings and works on paper, Benaroya constructs a female gaze that recasts women in dominant roles, with an assertive, idiosyncratic presence. The muscles on Benaroya’s figures both distort and ornament her subject’s bodies, and speak to female desire and a queer sensibility. Striking, offbeat colors dominate the compositions, and the artist’s intense, slightly macabre palette balances their figurative vigor and allure.
In her practice, Benaroya pulls from diverse sources to assemble a unique pictorial language. She cites gallery artist Peter Saul as a major inspiration, and her work often makes reference to graphic styles familiar from superhero comics. Her current exhibition at the gallery centers on images of women in relation to water, and through references to sources both art historical and contemporary, Benaroya explores the dynamics of queer desire, in which bodies are on display for themselves and on their own terms. In compositions animated by complex networks of attraction, Benaroya makes visible forms of lesbian desire that are typically rendered latent or invisible. As she told Stephanie Eckardt in W Magazine, “‘I want depictions of female nudes that have desire and passion, but because the women are the sex objects—because they see that in each other [...] I feel like not many examples of that exist, from the perspective of someone like me.’”
Delve into the artistic mind of Ana Benaroya, her evolution as an artist, and how her work challenges gender stereotypes.
Explore our curated collection of cool-toned artworks, featuring pieces that utilize the soothing and introspective qualities of blues, greens, and purples. These colors, historically significant and beloved by artists, evoke calmness, serenity, and depth.
Artspace is pleased to announce a bold new limited edition of 40 silkscreen prints by Ana Benaroya, entitled The Nun’s Litany.
Before her next solo show at Art Basel Hong Kong, Benaroya chats weaponized lactation and success in the art world with her mentor.
Rising-star painter Ana Benaroya's bodacious, bulked-up nudes embody feminine power with just a touch of humor.
Drawing inspiration from The Beach Boys song of the same title, “In My Room” pays homage to the introspective spaces of artistic production and delves into the intimate register of works on paper.
The latest exhibition at Venus Over Manhattan in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood highlights three artists whose props are long overdue.
Stepping into Ana Benaroya’s gallery space in Venus Over Manhattan is accepting a direct invitation into her psyche. Alongside her own pieces, the exhibition includes works from Benaroya’s forebearers Karl Wirsum and Tom of Finland, for an exploration of identity, queerness, and the human figure.
Phillips Sale on 28 September to Debut at Auction Ana Benaroya.
Carsten Höller’s latest work is a dining establishment, a social experiment — and a celebrity magnet.
Ana Benaroya lands a place as Highbrow Brilliant in The Approval Matrix.
The artist is now represented by Venus of Manhattan.
This news comes during the gallery’s debut solo exhibition with the artist, titled Swept Away, which inaugurated the gallery’s new downtown location at 55 Great Jones Street.
Ana Benaroya: Swept Away featured among New York exhibition highlights.
Opening April 8 at the New York gallery, the artist’s new show “Swept Away” explores a liquid fantasy.
Venus Over Manhattan’s first pick for its new downtown outpost showcasing younger artists would rather talk lesbian desire than the female gaze.
The new space marks the gallery's 10th anniversary and opens with a show by Ana Benaroya.
Ana Benaroya’s fervent paintings ... speak for her rage as a female, which, considering global cultures and the perpetration of varying levels of violence, remains a second-class gender or worse.
