Overlapping pairs of manicured hands clutch shiny keys; an open mouth hovers above a heart-shaped locket. These are images laden with drama – yet curiously meaningless. In her first solo exhibition in Los Angeles, Julia Maiuri uses the visual lexicon of film noir to conjure an unresolved intensity, depicting the genre’s characteristic femme fatale in a series of striking theatrical oil paintings. The resulting images reframe the restrictive norms of their source material, exposing the slippery underpinnings of female representation.
The portrayal of women in noir perpetuated social conventions: femme fatales were punished for their pursuit of individual interests at the expense of male heroes. Excised from context, Maiuri’s paintings both propose and deny this narrative legibility. Caught mid-dissolve, two sets of eyes in Inside Information (2023) capture the glance of a woman in motion. The painting’s title implies hidden knowledge but forecloses its revelation. In Eclipse (2022) the shadow of a fedoraed man bisects a blonde woman’s face, suggesting an oncoming confrontation. The artist’s subjects appear stuck in time, their plans neither successful nor thwarted.
