NEW YORK, NY.- Gagosian will participate in TEFAF New York 2025 with the presentation of a new body of work by Anna Weyant. Displayed in a booth with lavender walls and pine-colored carpet chosen by the artist, these intimately scaled, precisely composed paintings of jewelry explore themes of display, adornment, and commerce.
Made in the tradition of trompe loeil illusionism, the works on view (all 2025) represent the glow of delicately crafted gold chains, the opalescent sheen of pearls, and the sparkling facets of gemstones. Depicted with close attention to directional light and shadow, these bracelets, earrings, and necklaces are centered on flat painted grounds of light brown, mounted as if in a jewelry box or displayed in a store. Several of the depicted pieces feature price tags as if for sale.
Weyants jewelry paintings convey unchanging stillness. The oversize pearls, stylized flowers, and diamond cross play with ideas of artificial beauty, the precision of craft, and cultural and religious symbolism. In addition, pieces of jewelry often have subjective meanings invested in them as tokens for occasions or relationships, perhaps suggesting lives beyond their own.
The jewelry paintings are complemented by Spring Florals, a tabletop still life featuring a profusion of flowers in a vase. Engaging with themes of abundance, vitality, and vanitas essential to the tradition of the still life, the compositions blooms resemble the abstract, flattened flowers of the jewelry in Daisy Necklace and Daisy Earrings, charging the paintings with a sense of intrigue and artifice.