Vue de l’exposition / Installation view, Lobody noves me, Fondation Ricard, Paris, 2020. Curator: Eric TroncyVue de l’exposition / Installation view, Lobody noves me, Fondation Ricard, Paris, 2020. Curator: Eric TroncyAgent double (Lee Remick), 2021 pigments phosphorescents et huile sur toile / phosphorescent pigments and oil on canvas, 61 X 50 cmBush, bottes rouges, 2020 acrylique phosphorescente et huile sur toile / phosphorescent acrylic and oil on canvas, 250 x 180 cm. Collection MAC VAL / FRGilet bleu, 2019 huile sur toile / oil on canvas, 24 x 41 cmJane (grosse tête),2019 huile sur toile / oil on canvas, 250 x 180 cm, collection Musée d’Art Moderne, ParisHedy, 2012 huile sur toile / oil on canvas, 250 x 200 cm, collection CNAP, Centre national des arts plastiques Vue de l’exposition / Installation view Le rideau vert, Nouvelles vagues, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2013The years of G.M., 2012 huile sur toile / oil on canvas, 130 x 195 cm, collection Musée d’Art Moderne, ParisGrande chambre verte, 2007 huile sur toile / oil on canvas, 195 x 390 cm, triptyque, collection MAMCO, GenevaLes couleurs éclatantes de la table et du bouquet étaient utiles pour égayer ce chevet que le tableau rendait austère. Vous devez renoncer à …la salle à manger. (Triptyque Onéguine), 2006 huile sur toile / oil on canvas 195 x 374 cm, triptyque, collection FRAC Nouvelle Aquitaine MÉCA, Bordeaux Vue d’exposition / Installation view La haine de la peinture, FRAC Limousin, Limoges, 2009
Biography
Nina Childress is a painter born in 1961 in Pasadena (California, USA). She lives and works in Paris.
Coming from the alternative punk scene and then the Frères Ripoulin (Ripoulin Brothers) collective, she has been painting since 1983. While obtaining a Master of Fine Arts in 2006, she decided to pursue her research by painting simultaneously in different styles. Offering a gritty revisiting of the history of portraiture in Western popular culture, her paintings increasingly captured the stereotypes of female representation. For some paintings, she creates several versions, oscillating between perfectionism and “badly done”, between realism and caricatures: between “Good” and “Bad”. In 2019-2020, Nina Childress started to paint with phosphorescent pigments. Today, her subjects focus more on portraits of glamorous female idols from the world of cinema and popular music, such as Sylvie Vartan, Kate Bush and Hedy Lamarr. In 2020, Hedy Lamarr is also the model for her first bronze statue.
Recently, her work has been shown in several institutions such as Musée National d’Art Moderne – Centre Pompidou, Paris and Centre Pompidou Metz (2023/2024); FRAC Ile-de-France, Romainville (2023); La Cinémathèque française, Paris and MAC VAL, Vitry-sur-Seine (2022); MAMCO, Geneva (2021); Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris (2020). The Musée des Beaux-Arts de La-Chaux-de-Fond devoted a major exhibition to her work in 2022. In 2021, Nina Childress was named Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur in France for her service to culture. A major retrospective has been dedicated to her in December 2021 in Bordeaux at the FRAC Nouvelle-Aquitaine MÉCA. On this occasion, her catalogue raisonné, from her first painting in 1980 to those of 2020, will be published along with an autobiography written by Fabienne Radi. Since 2019, she is Chairman at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
Her work is represented by Nathalie Karg, New York and Art : Concept in Paris.
Her work is included in the collections of the Musée National d’Art Moderne, the Mamco in Geneva, the Mac-Val, the Fond Municipal d’Art Contemporain de la Ville de Paris and numerous Frac.
Nina Childress 1081 peintures et Une Autobiographie de Nina Childress par Fabienne Radi, Beaux-Arts de Paris éditions, Frac Nouvelle Aquitaine Méca, Galerie Bernard Jordan éditions, Paris, 2021, 998 pagesNina Childress. Tableaux fluo – 2013-2016, textes de Vanina Géré et Ramon Tio Bellido, édition Galerie Bernard Jordan, Paris, Les Presses du Réel, Dijon, 2016Nina Childress. Tableaux, textes de Carole Boulbès, Vincent Labaume, Yannick Miloux, Véronique Pittolo, éd. Galerie Bernard Jordan et Sémiose, Paris, 2008
