Desire and the Human Form in Becky Kolsrud’s Work

Desire and the Human Form in Becky Kolsrud’s Work

Posted on By Divya Gangwani

Desire and the Human Form in Becky Kolsrud’s Work
Highlighting Kolsrud’s limited edition prints with ART FOR CHANGE

Becky Kolsrud’s practice engages desire and fragmentation as ways of rethinking the human form through myth, art history, and abstraction. 

Drawing on classical sources and modernist traditions, her figures often dissolve into their environments, where body, landscape, and emotion become inseparable.

 With soft contours and inventive color, Kolsrud creates quiet, allegorical spaces that reflect themes of grief, solitude, and longing, echoing both personal experience and shared moments of collective isolation.

Learn more about her limited edition prints below!

 

 

Allegorical Bather is from Kolsrud’s series of allegorical nudes and redefines the classic subject with abstracted esoteric compositions. Her brunette hair curls around the rolling waves contoured in soft blue gradients. Inspired by modern masters such as Corot and Picasso, the evocative portrait reexamines the loaded symbolism of the subject. Shrouded by her environment, this reinterpreted allegorical nude leaves more than an odalisque’s glance to the imagination. 

 

From the artist’s Elegies series, Dryad (Cypress) is inspired by classical antiquity, exploring grief and solitude through the myth of Cyparissus and Apollo. A spread of clouds emerging from pale pink light, and the cypress tree with two human legs connoting Cyparissus’ fate as a tree to mourn the death of his prized stag. With soft contours and inventive coloring, Kolsrud’s quiet composition calls attention to the collective grief and solitude many have experienced in isolation.

Becky Kolsrud’s “Antechamber” currently on view at Magenta Plains Gallery

Antechamber showcases Kolsrud’s focus on an allegorical library of imagery; which she utilizes to demonstrate how the concepts first explicated by the Surrealists can be applied to a contemporary investigation of identity, and how that identity is broken down and reconstituted through painting. 

The show is up until February 28th, 2026 at Magenta Plains Gallery, New York.

 

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Becky Kolsrud lives and works in Los Angeles. She received a BS from New York University and an MFA from The University of California, Los Angeles. Selected solo exhibitions have been held at Moran Moran, Los Angeles; JTT, New York; Tif Sigfrids, Athens, GA, and Karma, New York. Selected group exhibitions include Aïshti Foundation, Beirut; Asia Art Center, Taipei; Magenta Plains, New York, and Atlanta Contemporary, Atlanta, among many others. Her exhibitions and practice have been covered in Artforum, Interview Magazine, Mousse, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Vogue, and numerous other publications worldwide. Her work is held in the collections of
The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, The Aïshti Foundation, Beirut, The Bunker, Beth Rudin deWoody Collection, Miami, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami and the Karpidas Collection in Dallas.