Natalie Frank was never confined to the white cube. That’s especially true now for the 43-year-old artist who, in addition to opening a new exhibition of work at the Miles McEnery Gallery, has just seen the release of two books and a big-budget TV show featuring his fantastic drawings.
In view at Miles McEnery is “The Raven and the Lion Tamer», Frank’s first solo exhibition in New York in more than a decade. It includes examples from both recent and related bodies of work.
The first is a suite of mixed expressionist images of women with lions. Most reverse the dynamic one might expect: in Frank’s world, cats are docile and women are wild. In one canvas, a lioness licks the red-bottomed sole of a masked woman whose arms are tied behind her head. Whether the constraints are for security or performance is unclear; either way, the scene is loaded with a thrill of danger.
Nathalie Frank, Raven III (2022). Courtesy of Miles McEnery Gallery.
Rounding out the show at Miles McEnery are seven gouache and pastel chalk drawings that Frank created for a new book on the collected writings of Edgar Allan Poe. The artist draws inspiration from Poe’s best-known poem for the series, titled The crowbut it deviates from the typical representations of the tale.
Instead, Frank focuses on Lenore, the narrator’s lost lover. In some cases, she is represented as a bird or a goddess; in others, its form is more difficult to define: is it a vision? A dream? A memory?
“The Raven and Lion Tamers series explores the possibilities of losing and controlling control,” FLAG Art Foundation director Jonathan Rider wrote in an essay for the show. “Operating in tense psychological spaces – a mourning chamber or a ring at the center of a circus – Frank’s fantastical images both complicate and exaggerate already heightened emotional states and circumstances.
“What Frank brings to light through these works,” Rider continued, “is the glory and the tumult, the disorder and the complex vulnerability of trying to maintain the illusion of control.”
Nathalie Frank, crow i (2022). Courtesy of Miles McEnery Gallery.
The book for which Frank painted these and other illustrations is Poe’s Fantasy, published earlier this year by Arion Press. The artist also illustrated a collection of works by another horror writer: The wounded storyteller: the traumatic stories of ETA Hoffmannwhich was published by Yale Books in May.
Sharp-eyed viewers can also spot Frank’s drawings and notebooks in The crowded room, a new Apple+ miniseries. Tom Holland, star of the series, plays a New York artist in 1979 who is arrested for a shocking crime – one he swears he didn’t commit.
See more pictures of “The Raven and the Tamer“below:
Nathalie Frank, Raven VI (2022). Courtesy of Miles McEnery Gallery.
Nathalie Frank, The lion tamer II (2022). Courtesy of Miles McEnery Gallery.
Nathalie Frank, Raven V (2022). Courtesy of Miles McEnery Gallery.
Nathalie Frank, The lion tamer IV (2022). Courtesy of Miles McEnery Gallery.
Nathalie Frank, The lion tamer III (2022). Courtesy of Miles McEnery Gallery.
Nathalie Frank, Raven II (2022). Courtesy of Miles McEnery Gallery.
“Natalie Frank: The Raven and the Lion Tameris on view until July 22 at the Miles McEnery Gallery in New York.
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