Voss Gallery presents “Sweet Fascination,” a solo exhibition of oil paintings by Ingrid V. Wells that exuberantly explores the complex nature of girlhood in American pop culture.

The exhibition opens on Friday, March 6, 6-10PM and runs through Saturday, March 21, 2020. The Opening Reception is free and open to the public; RSVP is encouraged for event updates and special promotions. Gallery hours are Wednesday - Saturday, 12-6PM or by appointment.

Compact compositions of sweet and kitschy objects are suspended in luscious backgrounds. In “Put on a Happy Face,” a Hello Kitty figurine stares blankly onto viewers amongst a frenzy of decadent cupcakes and diamonds. Eerily enlarged, these charming items possess a familiar yet bizarre quality.

Reminiscent of an oversaturated toy aisle, these works accentuate the social influence and ideologies of femininity instilled upon youth at a young age. Bows are perfectly tied. Hearts have the right sheen. Innocent in approach, these personified desserts and theatrical playthings promise the comfort of conformity. Heavy on the humor, “Sweet Fascination” is a fantastical presentation of an ideal adolescence waiting to be disrupted.

“I enjoy making visually entertaining paintings that reflect the feminine spectacle. My work begins with a still life reference, composed of tiny, plastic objects, undulating in fake frosting and sparkles. I manipulate and enlarge the imagery into bright, bold oil paintings. Conceptually I’m investigating the complex nature of girlhood in America, where young women simultaneously ingest messages of oppression and empowerment. My paintings engage with the aesthetics of joy as laid out by Ingrid Fetell Lee. Lee describes expressions of joy as a form of resistance, a theory that resonates with me.”–Ingrid V. Wells.

INGRID V. WELLS (b. Rockville, MD, 1987) earned her MFA from San Francisco Art Institute and her BFA from Arizona State University. Her work fancies the fantastic and humorous in theme and the charming, the kitschy, and the celebrity in subject. Wells's paintings investigate the world of gendered consumerism and the ethics of fascination. Her work has been shown in the Bay Area, New York, Miami and internationally in Japan, South Korea and Israel. Her work has been featured in The Huffington Post, Daily Mail, BUST Magazine, El País, Create! Magazine and Teen Vogue, among others. Wells is a professional development grant recipient from the Center for Cultural Innovation. She manages San Francisco Artists Studios, enjoys teaching advanced painting courses with SFAI's Public Education program and runs TWIRL: A Decade of Artists Interviews. Wells currently lives and works in San Francisco.