Gina Beavers & Brock Enright

GINA BEAVERS

Dieu Donné is pleased to release Ombre Lip Tutorial, a new Paper Variables commission by Gina Beavers. Working with Studio Collaborator Amy Jacobs, the artist created an edition of 36 low- relief pulp paintings made with cotton and pigmented linen paper pulp. In four grids of nine, each work shows a different step in the process of a make-up application technique, and each grid reflects a different color effect.

Ombre Lip Tutorial is based on the artist’s paintings of internet video tutorials creating the illusion of full, plump lips with make-up. Beavers said in a recent Modern Painters profile, the make-up application “reminds me of what it feels like to make a painting. You’re using brushes, trying to make yourself appealing. It’s evolutionary. Mate with my painting!” There are 100,000 results for “ombre lip tutorial” on YouTube made by professional and amateur make-up artists, each with a personal take on applying a primer, dark lip liner, bright lipstick, and a lighter central color, then blending everything together. The consistent formula of these tutorials shows a disembodied mouth directly in camera, with an occasional cosmetic brush coming into frame, applying or blending pigment.

This technique employs the same principals of perspective and shading used by artists for centuries to indicate shape and depth. This pictorial illusion achieves a heightened feminine beauty that is a highly impractical, but highly impactful look. The ombre lip trend appears in photos all over Instagram, which Beavers mines for source material in her thickly layered acrylic paintings. Recent exhibitions at her gallery have presented paintings based on images tagged on the app as “#foodporn”, and other make-up tutorials for dramatic eyeliner and elaborate nail art.

In the Dieu Donné studio, sheets of cotton paper were pressed

on top of foam templates to emboss the form of lips and create physical dimension in the work, a hallmark of the artist’s paintings. Beavers then applied layers of pigmented linen pulp paint in the same way as she would with acrylic paint. Cut foam was placed on the painted liips to emboss the top of the sheet and create the form of natural wrinkles in pouting lips. The artist used screen shots from various videos and images of her own paintings as visual reference, and worked on several pieces simultaneously.

BROCK ENRIGHT

Dieu Donné is pleased to announce a new Paper Variables edition commission by Brock Enright. out there, a cast paper bas relief, is a series based on the classic Ouija talking board. Enright worked collaboratively with Artistic Director Paul Wong to hand paint 35 individual board backgrounds with pigmented linen paper pulp. Each edition is accompanied by a cotton ‘oracle’ or planchette based on the device for maneuvering around the board to answer questions or spell words.

The Ouija Board, invented in the late 19th century as a parlor game, has a reputation as an occult means of communication between the living and the dead, while at the same time is a staple of grade school sleepovers and sold in toy stores. Enright’s work walks a line between the innocent and immoral, between spirituality and commodity, surface beauty and a seedy underbelly, echoed in this hand-crafted version of a mass market product.

The artist’s work has taken many forms, using disparate materials for aesthetic ends in paintings, immersive installations, and objects. Recent works incorporate biodegradable items (fruit, Ritz crackers, Doritos chips), with traditional media, like oil paint on fabric, or pastel on paper, mounted on board. These familiar processes are employed to create works based on anarchic, violent, or occult phenomena. Enright has previously worked with paper as a substrate for drawings that imitate industrial materials (such as iron pigment to approximate a metal throwing star).

Working in collaboration with Paul Wong brings a new approach to the artist’s work paper. The 35 editions of out there were created with a hand-carved rubber mold to form text with black cotton, which was pressed onto base sheets of paper painted with pigmented linen pulp. Drawing from the artist’s personal collection of vintage Ouija boards, some works in the edition mimic the original wood versions from the turn of the century, while others have psychedelic, swirling colors based on models from the 1970s.