Using unexpurgated versions of the Brothers Grimm’s famous fairy tales as source material, Natalie Frank spent several years delving into them as part of the research behind 75 colorful gouache and pastel works on paper, created for a book. For this intimate exhibition, she presents 25 of those drawings, hung on dark blue walls.
The Grimms drew upon oral tradition, and because their stories often revolved around female characters (who were usually abused or reduced to sexual fantasies), women themselves transmitted the tales, repeating them while gathering water at the well, for instance, or while sitting around at home. To the artist’s mind, these age-old narratives were ripe for a contemporary feminist revision.
Frank chose stories most familiar from their sanitized form, like Little Red Riding Hood. In earlier renditions, the Big Bad Wolf was depicted as a cross-dressing sex fiend. Accordingly, Frank depicts the lupine villain in bed, wearing Grandmother’s nightgown and stroking his genitals as a naked Red stands before him.
Cinderella, Rapunzel and Snow White are among the 36 fairy tales Frank reinterpreted for her book, creating several illustrations for each. Using friends and family members as models for the characters, Frank takes the stories apart to uncover their most sinister scenes, rendering them with surreal, nightmarish flourishes. Digging into their subtexts, Frank unmasks these tales as the twisted, misogynistic fantasies they always were.
—Paul Laster