Chelsea Culprit
The work of Chelsea Culprit explores the performance of gender in the labor market and the expression of gender in the natural world. The artist reinvents subjects and techniques of historical painting, recoding the latent symbols of patriarchy toward an expanded social imaginary. Composed of feelings as much as descriptions, Culprit’s work entangles representations of the body’s capacity for work, play, display, expression, the performed authenticity of identity, and the intractability of freedom and personal bondage. Moving freely between the pictorial imagery of folk art and the materiality of the real world, the artist works with various mediums including neon light, sculptural assemblage, and installation, while grounding the practice in painting.
Culprit finds the painted subjects in characters who express their sexuality and gender with raucous freedom. They exist after or outside of a male gaze and are sited in spaces where those expressions are possible: the nightclub, the garden, the forest. These bodies are rendered with hard edges, but also morph into one another, into plants, into abstract color fields, into objects on the kitchen table — they are the laborers and high priestesses of the artist’s life, and embody myths of becoming and the fantasies, or reimagined archetypes of the present, that lead us from the past, into the future.
Chelsea Culprit (b. 1984 in Paducah, KY) lives and works between Mexico City, Mexico, and New York, NY. Recent solo exhibitions include Pole on Break, Queer Thoughts, New York, NY (2022); Malas Madres, Lulu, Mexico City, Mexico (2019); Fear of Seduction, Queer Thoughts at Maureen Paley, London, UK (2019); DMing Purgatory, Queer Thoughts, New York, NY (2018); Fishnets, Uma Certa Falta de Coerencia, Porto, Portugal (2017); Right to Remain Elegant, Galeria La Esperanza at Barba Azul, Mexico City, Mexico (2017); and Miss Universe, Yautepec, Mexico City, Mexico (2016). Culprit’s work featured in recent group exhibitions at TANK Shanghai, Shanghai, China (2020); Museo Arte de Zapopan, Guadalajara, Mexico (2020); Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France (2019); Museum of Modern Art Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland (2019); Revolver Gallery, Lima, Peru (2019); Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, Australia (2018); and Museo de Arte Carillo Gil, Mexico City, Mexico (2018).
Artworks
Chelsea Culprit
Devil’s Garden Escalante, 2023
Oil and acrylic on canvas
80 x 84 inches
(203.2 x 213.3 cm)
Photograph by Alon Koppel
Chelsea Culprit
The History of Art, Propped Up by Models, Mothers, Muses, Mistresses and Maids, Accompanied by Americana Domestic Bliss Fantasy, 2023
Oil and acrylic on canvas
69 1/2 x 138 1/2 inches
(176.5 x 351.8 cm)
Photograph by Alon Koppel
Chelsea Culprit
Our Mother Who We Created, 2023
Oil, plaster, and glass mirror on canvas
80 x 72 inches
(202.3 x 183 cm)
Photograph by Alon Koppel
Chelsea Culprit
Disidentified Pattern Recognition, 2023
Oil on canvas
83 x 48 inches
(211 x 122 cm)
Photograph by Alon Koppel
Chelsea Culprit
Shell Phone, 2022
Oil and acrylic on canvas and fabric collage
86 x 55 x 2.25 inches
(218.4 x 139.7 x 5.7 cm)
Photograph by Ramiro Chávez
Chelsea Culprit
Shell Phone’s First Rodeo, 2022
Acrylic, oil, aluminum enamel, mirror on canvas
60 x 100 inches
(152.4 x 254 cm)
Courtesy of the artist and Queer Thoughts, New York
Chelsea Culprit
Peas, Love and Rambos, 2022
Oil and acrylic on canvas
84 x 64 inches
(213.36 x 162.56 cm)
Courtesy of the artist and Queer Thoughts, New York
Chelsea Culprit
Kenneth’s Tantrum (in a room of primary colors and LED lights), 2020
Oil, acrylic, gouache, spray enamel, oil stick, wax crayon, digital vinyl print, and canvas collage on canvas
44 x 45 inches
(112 x 114 cm)
Photograph by Ramiro Chávez
Chelsea Culprit
Arm of the Law Under Cover of the Night, Border Crossing Gender Police with State Funded Anarchists and Americana Sexy Nurse, 2020
Dishtowels, Santander upholstery, denim, bandanas, plastic tablecloth, silk pajamas, cotton print, weaving, acrylic, oil, oil pastel, dry pastel, aluminum enamel on canvas
45 x 44 x 2 inches
(114.3 x 111.8 x 5.1 cm)
Photograph by Ramiro Chávez
Chelsea Culprit
Flirtatious Preteen Fantasia of a Transcendental Algorithm, Unbound from Function or Cause, 2020
Acrylic, oil, oil stick, oil enamel, gouache, digital print canvas, digital print vinyl, fabric collage, and wax crayon on canvas
46.5 x 80 inches
(118 x 203cm)
Photograph by Ramiro Chávez
Chelsea Culprit
Siblia in the Shape of a Monster Made of Leaves, 2021
Acrylic and hardware
92.9 x 38 inches
(236 x 96.5 cm)
Photograph by Revolver Galería
Chelsea Culprit
Hold Still!, 2020
Oil, acrylic, gouache, pen, and charcoal on canvas
47.25 x 59 inches
(120 x 149.9 cm)
Photograph by Ramiro Chaves
Chelsea Culprit
Ongosto, First Rain, 2020
Charcoal, dry pastel, indigo dye, coffee, and acrylic gouache on canvas
24 x 73.25 inches
(61 x 186.1 cm)
Photograph by Ramiro Chaves
Chelsea Culprit
Nothing to Wear, 2020
Acrylic, oil, ink, and spray enamel on canvas; wood, fabric, and aluminum tape
86.7 x 82.7 inches
(220.2 x 210.1 cm)
Photograph by Ramiro Chaves
Chelsea Culprit
Wet and Wild Chimaeras with Turkey Baster Bootie Frills (Permanent Trend), 2019
Oil, oil enamel, oil stick, dry pastel, charcoal, crayon, and gouache on canvas
47 x 100 inches
(119.4 x 254 cm)
Photograph by Ramiro Chaves
Chelsea Culprit
Meesha and Zipora Sharing Secrets and Making Plans (Ages 8 + 14), 2019
Oil, oil stick, dry pastel, gouache, and acrylic on canvas
73 x 43.5 inches
(185.4 x 110.5 cm)
Photograph by Ramiro Chaves
Chelsea Culprit
Red Boot with Blood, 2020
Vinyl platform boot, chain, hardware, neon
47.25 x 11.75 x 7.87 inches
(120 x 30 x 20 cm)
Photograph by Ramiro Chaves
Chelsea Culprit
All Your Innocence: Sensual Baskets 4, 2020
Paper collage, dry pastel, gouache, and ink on paper
38.6 x 25.6 inches
(49.5 x 130 cm)
Photograph by Ramiro Chaves
Chelsea Culprit
All Your Innocence: Sensual Baskets 3, 2020
Paper collage, dry pastel, gouache, and ink on paper
19.5 x 51.2 inches
(49.5 x 130 cm)
Photograph by Ramiro Chaves
