Phoebe Little’s (b. 1992; Lincoln, Nebraska) paintings examine the conditions of consumption, hinging on an ambivalence between fulfilment and emptiness. Little draws on vanitas and trompe l’oeil styles of painting to build narratives that bridge the mundane and the luxurious, conflating the two in a manner that is at once satirical and meaningful. Little’s lavish attention to detail elevates her subjects, which arise from everyday life; snacks, flowers, thrifted trinkets, and empty containers appear in her works with the same care and attention witnessed in masterwork still lives from Dutch art history. In channeling interplays of these objects through a highly precise hand, the artist builds a narrative that positions the quotidian elements of life as an arena in which identities are drawn and histories can be examined.
Focusing on the physicality of her subjects, Little constructs each image through a combination of collage, photography, and imagination, imbuing each scene with an uncanny quality through a subtly disrupted logic of perspective and light. These curious, exactingly rendered subjects are chosen from the artist’s own belongings, imbuing each tableau with personal meaning and sentimentality. By Little’s hand, patterns bend, two-dimensional objects stand and cast shadows, and swaths and shapes of paint take on new life as players, pretending, convincingly, to be the objects they embody. So too, do ideas and identities, which are often formed and informed by the pleasures of life, and one’s access to them, positioning consumption as a method of social alignment.
Texture proliferates in Little’s highly technical paintings: the smooth curves of fruit are as convincingly rendered as a crumpled paper bag or a fine, pillowy slice of bread. For viewers, the artist’s highly precise style functions as a window through which pedestrian objects take on new life, becoming symbols that rethink those that existed in the ages of colonialism and mercantilism — a historical reframing that makes way for new narratives. In Little’s world, every object is an actor, representing an idea or participating in an allegorical gesture. The table, in Little’s realm, is a stage, and the bottles, fruits, knick-knacks, palettes, and plates, merely players.
Phoebe Little has presented solo exhibitions at Parrish Studio, Lincoln, NE; Three Cups of Gallery, NE; Tugboat Gallery, Lincoln, NE, and Medici Gallery, Lincoln, NE. Little has participated in group exhibitions at Perrotin Gallery, New York, NY; Spurs Gallery, Beijing, China; Parker Gallery, New York, NY, and Constellation Studios, Lincoln, NE, among many others. The artist has participated in residencies at Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Nebraska City, NE, and Santa Reparata International School of Art, Florence, Italy, and in 2022 was awarded the Richard Welling Scholarship at Yale School of Art. The artist holds an MFA from Yale School of Art in New Haven, CT; and a BFA in Painting from University of Nebraska Lincoln, NE. The artist lives and works in New Haven, CT.