Ella Kruglyanskaya, How to Work Together, Studio Voltaire

From April 11, Latvian born US based artist Ella Kruglyanskaya’s vibrant and playful paintings of shapely young women will be buzzing with hyperactive energy at South London gallery Studio Voltaire. 

Cartoonish in style, her paintings are thoughtful parodies of female stereotypes – in the artist's own words, it’s ‘tongue-in-cheek feminism’. It’s absolutely electric, and we think Kruglyanskaya is going to be huge.

The paintings depict curvaceous young women, often in pairs, in scenarios that always verge on the comic. If they’re not being eaten by crocodiles or lounging on the beach in tight swimwear, then they are engaging in catfights or running from menacing shadows in trench coats. Like cartoons, her paintings are full of visual puns and double meanings, so guns might be penises, dresses and curves have eyes and smiles, and the women’s expressions hover between smouldering come-hitherness and surprised terror. 

Captured with full-bodied brushstrokes these images are responses to a specific ideas about the representation of experienced female sexuality and rivalrous female friendships. If they strike us as hysterical, then that, Krugslyanskaya says, is because that seems to be an appropriate response.

This exhibition forms part of How to Work Together, a wider collaborative programme of commissioning and research by Studio Voltaire and two other London galleries, Chisenhale Gallery and The Showroom. Kruglyanskaya has created new pieces in response to the title, which include a large mural, works on paper and oil paintings of women engaged in work.  We look forward to pencil skirts and plenty of double entendre.

There’s something about these adventurous and lively works that is utterly irresistible, and you’d be a fool to miss it. And it’s absolutely free, so there are no excuses not to go. 

Though if Clapham lies beyond your usual stomping ground, you may consider combining your trip with a legs up at Breads Etcetera, where the brunch is fabulous. 

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Studio Voltaire is open Wednesday - Sunday from 12:00 - 18:00