Marianna Olague | People You Know: Detroit
David Klein Gallery is pleased to present People You Know, an exhibition of new paintings by Marianna Olague.
Marianna Olague is a painter born and raised in El Paso, Texas where the desert environment and tight knit borderland community heavily influence her work, from the brilliantly saturated colors to her symbolic representations of the USA-Mexico border. Finding beauty in the familiar is central to Olague’s practice. She uses portraiture to explore what it means to be Mexican American in the 21st century, creating intimate paintings of her friends and family, sharing snapshots of their everyday lives as they work, play, and rest. As we delve deeper, these small moments become representative of the larger identities her subjects shift through as they grow and evolve.
People You Know presents a new series of familial portraits. Throughout art history artists have called upon family members, friends and neighbors to sit for them and Olague continues this tradition. Her subjects are all loved ones: family and friends that are considered family. Each portrait bears witness to the different roles they take on as they adapt to the milestones and challenges in their lives. Olague states, “I’m interested in how the people I know grow and change over time and how this evolution can be captured through portraiture.” While her work is deeply personal, broader archetypes can be recognized throughout the exhibition: the mother, the artist, the lovers, the student, and more. Something all the subjects share is their Mexican American identity, a role which colors their life experiences and cannot be altered.
Olague’s use of pure color imbues her compositions with a dazzling vitality. Shedding the expected palette, a girl on a park bench becomes a study in purple, concrete walls look like sunsets and foliage turns cobalt blue. The oversaturated hues are a hint at the subject’s emotional state as well as a reference to traditional Mexican art. She explains that “adding layers of saturated color to the canvas is my way of savoring a singular moment… I’m also adhering to the Mexican tradition of re-coloring the world around me.”
Marianna Olague has an MFA in painting from Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI and a BFA from the University of El Paso, El Paso, TX. Her work is in multiple private and public collections including the Rubin center for Visual Arts, El Paso, TX and Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, MI. Olague’s painting, Customer Service Representative, 2020, is included in the Outwin 2022, American Portraiture Today which opened at the Smithsonian Museum’s National Portrait Gallery in April 2022 and is traveling through 2024 to the Orlando Museum of Art; Orlando, FL; Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill, NC; Michele and Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, MA; and Grand Rapids Art Museum, Grand Rapids, MI. Olague’s work has been shown in multiple exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Detroit including in the McNay Museum San Antonio TX, Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, MI and the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Washington D.C. Awards include the 2021 Chinati Foundation Residency, the 2019 Künstlerhaus Bethanien Residency, Berlin and the 2019 Mercedes-Benz Emerging Artist Award. Marianna Olague lives and works in El Paso, Texas, she is represented by David Klein Gallery.
