Jennifer Faun Manne
January 3 - January 24, 2023
Reception: January 5, 2023, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
InquireFaun Manne is a painter and fashion designer based in the Chicago metropolitan area. Having worked in fashion for more than twenty years, Manne acquired an intimate knowledge of the female body. Studying a combination of live models and physical references, she builds poignant collages that denounce the objectification of women. Manne describes her technique as “Painting without paint,” which consists of building figurative compositions by layering magazine cutouts, tissue paper, or brightly colored paper and adding finishing touches with acrylic paint. Devoid of life, her subjects stare into nothingness with vacuous eyes, like mannequins in a shop window. In the Tattoo Me series, for example, the figures are clad with pulp art images from books which highly sexualize and degrade women. Manne used rare original publications, which she scouted from various online sources. The images are representations of the disempowering view held about women, who are regarded as utilitarian objects more akin to dolls than thinking beings. Almost haunting in their candor, the figures send a shiver down our spines. Manne wants us to look deeply into the models’ glassy pupils, so that we can recognize their humanity behind their hollow plastic armors.
