A series of secreting, grotesquely glamorous portrait paintings rendered in gloopy lip gloss, lustrous nail polish, sparkly eye shadows, tints, and creams pay homage to queer-feminist heroes and the power of the performative body. Intimate in scale, Vaginal Davis’ paintings on found paper allude to the transformative body in their material and form—creams and oils typically used on flesh are applied with a fleeting dynamism that evokes a sense of movement in each mark. A witchy undertone is felt in their morphic makeup-ed surfaces, bubbling and melting with the shifting environment and passing of time. Excedrin migraine tablets and other pain pills are sprinkled throughout the work like fairy dust and adhered to the surfaces with super-hold hair spray.

The work’s honoring of lesser-known artists and creative figures serves as a reminder of Davis’s important role as an artist and collaborator whose experimental practice helped shape the avant-garde punk scene in Los Angeles in the 1970s and 1980s and legacy of performance and body art—a history that is too often overlooked, misunderstood or gleaned over.

Marc Selwyn Fine Art 
9953 S Santa Monica Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90212
On view through May 27, 2023