A rainbow wash of color highlights Mira Gandy’s "Women of
the World: Les Visages" exhibit at B. Smith’s rooftop garden
restaurant. This is Ms. Gandy’s first exhibit and it is of the
first order.
Dedicated to the women of the world, the 13 paintings on display range
from translucent Scandinavian white to African ebony; beautiful composite
images of women from all over the world are captured in acrylic on
canvas, colored markers and combinations of both.
To give her mixed medium paintings an additional three-dimensional
effect, the 20 year old artist who is a native New Yorker, has embellished
the works with denim, leather, hair and luminous jewerly of various
description. A portrait of entertainer Nona Hendryx embraces a far
wall and it appears to project across the entire gallery; the shock
of hair enhancing the life-like features.
"I started using this technique of adding things several years ago," Ms.
Gandy explains. "It began when I placed single strand of hair to the Marilyn
Monroe painting," she says, pointing to the nearby portrait. Most of Ms.
Gandy’s paintings possess some sort of adornment. There is a lovely painting
of an olive-skinned woman with actual metallic earrings glued to its surface.
Another darker woman is arrayed in a real stringed necklace; her star is as enigmatic
as Mona Lisa’s.
Sometimes the additional objects interfere with Ms. Gandy’s developing
brush strokes, her instinctive feel for color. One painting of a Latinais
striking enough; there is no need to attach an artificial flower to
her bodice. And where some of the paste on the jewerly has fallen away
the image is left tacky and incomplete.
A graduate of the School of Performing Arts, Ms. Gandy has also studied
Art History at the American College in Paris. It was while abroad that
she conceived the idea to mount such an exhibit. "I was fascinated
and surprised by the women I met when I was traveling. Although the
women differed in their backgrounds and nationalitics there is a mutual
understanding that beautiful women share…this inspired me to capture
and unite these unique women of the world."
"Women of the World: Les Visages" will run at B. Smith’s through
August. Some of the paintings are for sale.
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