Lorraine Shemesh

Lorraine Shemesh's monumental drawings and paintings of food and everyday objects are reverentially depicted in detailed splendor, alluding to the pleasure and over indulgence of excess. These works lay the groundwork for her later paintings of swimmers, a restrained yet powerful series which captures the nuanced portrayal of bodies underwater through their expressionist brushstrokes and rich layers. In Shemesh’s work, life is displayed as spirited, dynamic and open-ended.

Shemesh received a BFA in Painting from Boston University and an MFA in Painting from the Tyler School of Art. She has taught painting and drawing at the Rhode Island School of Design and Amherst College. She will be the Artist-in-Residence at Dartmouth College in 2021.  Her work has been exhibited at the Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; The Frye Art Museum, Seattle; The National Academy Museum, New York; the Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, NY; the Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn NY;  Musee de Carouge, Carouge, Switzerland; the Akron Art Museum, OH; Nasher Museum of Art, Durham NC; De Cordova Museum, Lincoln, MA; Museum of the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI; and Museum of The City of New York. Lorraine Shemesh is a member of the National Academy of Design in New York City, a two-time Watershed Residency recipient and a Yaddo Fellowship recipient. Her work has been reviewed in Art in America, The New Yorker, and The New York Times among other publications.  She lives and works in New York City.