Artist's Statement

Nadja Kabriel is an artist whose practice uses still life to interrogate the systems of value assigned to women’s domestic and bodily experience. Working in oil, she places objects with little to no history of painterly representation (a testosterone bottle or packet of tampons) alongside subjects governed by centuries of pictorial convention, principally flowers. This juxtaposition exposes the selective logic of the still life tradition: what has been deemed worthy of representation, and what has been excluded as too private, too bodily, or too ordinary.

Kabriel describes her practice as a response rather than a commentary — a way of making sense of a transition she understands to be widely shared, if rarely depicted: “Within the context of my life as a mother, partner, homemaker, and artist, I explore and make sense of my place in the world through painting. I have placed a high value on my relationships within my home. I regularly reflect on my role as a mother and partner, how I’m succeeding and how I’m failing — where I can do better. My sense of value has been instinctively wrapped up in what I’ve provided for others.

“Lately, however, this has begun to shift. My hormones are changing and with it my abilities, desires, and capacities; my sense of purpose and value is being revised. My painting isn’t a commentary, it’s a response — helping to make sense of my place. I don’t think my experience is unique and I don’t believe I’m alone. I am a 46 year old mother of two. My name is Nadja Kabriel. Hello.”