Born 1984 in Columbia, South Carolina. Lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
The paintings of Sarah Slappey contort expectations of the female nude in ways that eroticize the distasteful and brutalize the sensual. Sexual puns and bathroom jokes are squeezed into compositions of fleshy surreality that bulge and squirt within the picture frame. Feminine symbols and phallic objects from tampons to pearls, cigarettes and lipstick are reframed as kinky props of evolved bodies condensed to sexual features. In doing so, Slappey seeks to topple a history of male dominated female depiction, taking control of an invented body of imagery, while translating its ability to remain provocative and sensuous.
Her recent solo shows include Bloodline at Bernheim, London (2024); Sacrifices at Bernheim, Zurich (2022); Self Care at Sargent’s Daughters, New York (2021); Tenderizer at Bernheim, Zurich (2020); Power Play at Sargent’s Daughters, New York (2020); and Soft, Pink, and Warm at Deanna Evans Projects, New York (2019).
Her work is included in the permanent collections of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Miami; Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC; Musée D’Art Moderne et Contemporain, Geneva; The Zabludowicz Collection, London; Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio; The Pond Society, Shanghai; Orange County Museum of Art, California; among others.