Christina Renfer Vogel

Christina Renfer Vogel works with still life, portraiture, and landscape, the pillars of perceptual painting. Drawing from the quotidian and familiar, she navigates the space between seeing and describing, interpretation and invention. In her recent work, houseplants are surrogates for figures, plant portraits that entangle with vivid backdrops or sit unadorned on studio furniture. Sweet or ostentatious motifs speak to the allover patterning found in nature, grounding these tableaus; the patterns recall bed sheets, wallpaper, or couch cushions, the stuff of home. In other paintings of flowers, Vogel embraces their affiliations with femininity and overt beauty. She thinks of the bouquets as representing an exchange, too, a gesture and a marking of time. This work engages Vogel’s interest in the ordinary and the staged, while she considers the potential for theatricality she seeks within the banality of the everyday. Her paintings feel lush, verdant, and abundant, a restorative balm by way of pure visual pleasure.

Courtesy of David Lusk Gallery