Nicole Eisenman

Nicole Eisenman moved to Brooklyn soon after graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1987. Since coming to prominence in the early 1990s for bold, sexually charged images with feminist themes and abundant references to art history and pop culture, she has remained central to the discourse that has developed around queer and feminist practices.

For one year, starting in August 2011, Eisenman focused exclusively on making works on paper and prints, taking a hiatus from painting. Untitled combines a complex mix of mediums, and directly references the history of twentieth-century portraiture. The subject, identifiable by his long-lashed right eye, is Alex, the violent sociopath in Stanley Kubrick’s film (adapted from Anthony Burgess’s novella) A Clockwork Orange. Tightly framed against a pitch-black, schematically rendered architectural interior, the flattened, cartoonish figure holds a glass of milk and what appears to be a pool cue. The Yankees logo on his floppy hat situates the work in a New York bar—a realm often explored by Eisenman in her recent work. When the economic recession hit in 2008, Eisenman registered its effects on those around her in scenes of barrooms and beer gardens whose occupants appear anything but jovial. Arguably, the figure in Untitled constitutes an even darker vision, its sinister reference cloaked in a highly expressive composition.