Ilana Savdie
Ilana Savdie (born in 1986), Pinching the Frenulum, 2023, oil, acrylic and beeswax on canvas, 305.4 x 218.8 cm. MMFA, purchase, Giverny Capital Fund in memory of Pierre Théberge, and through the generosity of the International Friends of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts as well as the support of Anna and Todd Wulfe and Maurice and Paul Marciano Art Foundation. Photo MMFA, Jean-François Brière
ILANA SAVDIE
Born in Barranquilla, Colombia, in 1986
Pinching the Frenulum
2023
Oil, acrylic and beeswax on canvas
305.4 x 218.8 cm
Purchase, Giverny Capital Fund in memory of Pierre Théberge, and through the generosity of the International Friends of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts as well as the support of Anna and Todd Wulfe and Maurice and Paul Marciano Art Foundation
Raised in Colombia and educated in the United States, where she lives today, Ilana Savdie uses electrifying colours, inspired by the Barranquilla Carnival and LGBTQIA2S+ spaces, to paint bodies in mutation, their limbs extending to the point of abstraction. Using drawing, collage and beeswax, she builds her compositions from forms associated with art history, film, scientific imagery and parasites, juxtaposing them and modifying their scale to explore dynamics of identity, transgression and power.
Pinching the Frenulum is part of a series of recent works by the artist that came out of her reflections on the many attacks to human rights witnessed in the past several years in the United States. The MMFA is the first Canadian museum to acquire a work by Savdie, whose career is on the rise.
