Brady Sloane-Duncan

Brady Sloane-Duncan is an oil painter based in Texas, who uses self-portraiture to explore universal themes of contemporary existence through a deeply personal lens informed by her West Texas Plains heritage. The elaborate process of her artistic practice is a conceptual act of self-reflection that affords the artist space to work through life experiences and build resilience. 

Sloane-Duncan's paintings explore the tensions between public and private, and question whether we can ever fully be known by another person. She investigates the strategies we as humans use to veil or mask our truest selves and the reasons why we hold back and keep parts of ourselves private, even from those closest to us. The self-portraits raise questions essential to Sloane-Duncan's practice: How and why do we use personal embellishment to shape others' views of ourselves? Are self-adornment and interior decor forms of expression or manipulation? 

The artist often takes on the role of wallflower in her paintings, positioning herself in front of boldly patterned luxury wallpapers wearing meticulously selected color-coordinated garments that serve to camouflage her within the compositions to varying degrees. Sloane-Duncan's attempts at self-concealment reflect the delicate balance between a desire for personal privacy and the intricate (and inescapable) small-town social dynamics wrapped up in the domestic trappings of a well-appointed home. Not surprisingly, Cindy Sherman is a source of inspiration, as are David Hockney, Kurt Vonnegut, and Jean-Honoré Fragonard.

Sloane-Duncan's paintings deliberately walk a tightrope between the serious and the absurd. In one series, the artist brings the age-old genre of self-portraiture into the twenty-first century by incorporating notifications encountered in the digital sphere: "Oops! Something Went Wrong"; "Sorry Image Not Available." These familiar graphic messages are superimposed over the subject's (i.e., the artist's) face. This act of obscuring one's identity with a graphic representation of a quotidian annoyance does not simply subvert or return the viewer's gaze, but blocks it entirely allowing the artist to reclaim a modicum of the privacy lost to the realities of contemporary life.