WYNNIE MYNERVA STUNS
Gender Politics, Queer Aesthetic + Desire
Peruvian artist Wynnie Mynerva presents a solo show of their breathtaking and impactful work at LatchKey Gallery in New York. The exhibition, Sweet Castrator, is a brilliant transformation of the artist’s past traumas by depicting the predator as the prey and shifting the power.
Wynnie Mynerva (they/them) was born in 1993 and grew up in Lima, Peru. Their work is primarily autobiographical and explores gender politics, queer aesthetics, and female desire. The young artist witnessed multiple traumatic events during their childhood, which helped form their identity. Their work creates a liberating alternate reality in which roles reverse, and the previously belittled figure becomes empowered, aggressive, and sexually liberated. Although the themes in these powerful abstract paintings are mainly erotic, violent, and bold, the color palette is a soft and pleasant combination of vibrant colors and pastels, creating a brilliant juxtaposition. Their choice of color and style alludes to periods in western art history that historically engaged with the female form only in a passive way and in relation to the male gaze (the artist received classical training at San Marcos University and Bellas Artes in Lima, Peru), but in Mynerva’s paintings the female body is depicted in an energetic, dominant way; a way in which they regain their power and rebel against masculine authority.
Sweet Castrator is part of the artist’s healing process, as she leaves the role of the victim and becomes a dominant force. The painting titled A Matter of Luck, featured in the exhibition portrays “a tense game of roulette which is shown by a knife tormenting a surreal hand—the fingers are formed of penises—whose luck has run out.” In Story of Revenge, Mynerva is influenced by Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith Beheading Holofernes and “mimicking the emotional exuberance of the subject matter with the raw velocity of Mynerva’s gestures it forces the viewer to surrender to the visceral power and encompassing scale of the painting.” The female body is depicted as deserving of pleasure and not as an object to be used or mistreated.
Wynnie Mynerva is a young revolutionary talent whose bold approach has evolved these past few years and thoroughly deserves praise and recognition globally. Sweet Castrator, a show guaranteed to evoke many different feelings in the viewer, is on view from May 7 to June 19, 2021, at LatchKey Gallery (323 Canal Street).
