Smith-Stewart is pleased to present VENUS AT HER MIRROR, a solo exhibition of new paintings by the Swedish artist YLVA OGLAND.

The title, Venus At Her Mirror, refers to the Diego Velázquez painting of the same name. The exhibition reflects some of the more poignant moments of the artist’s life from childhood, through puberty, to the present time.

The central motif of the exhibition is Ogland’s personal interest in mirror imagery and its reflection of our own complicated lives. In her paintings, she explores the fantasy world within the mirror and the real world outside of the mirror and how these images interact with her own memories.

The show is comprised of three parts. There are still life paintings of drug paraphernalia, which have been coupled with familiar objects from Ogland’s early childhood. There are self-portraits of the artist naked as an 11-year-old girl, based on photographs taken by her father at the time. Finally, there is a series of small round paintings that are mirror images of the artist’s genitalia, self-portraits of the present day.

Ylva Ogland was born in 1974 in Umeå, Sweden and is now based in New York. This is her first solo show in the United States. Ogland received her Master of Fine Arts from the Royal University College of Fine Arts in Stockholm. Her work has been exhibited at the Moderna Museet and Brändström & Stene in Stockholm, Shugoarts in Tokyo, Rhodes + Mann in London, and Circus Gallery in Los Angeles. She is represented in international art collections such as the Chichu Art Museum, Naoshima Fukutake Art Museum Foundation in Kagawa and Moderna Museet in Stockholm.

This exhibition is dedicated to her fellow countryman Ingmar Bergman.