Gail Stoicheff
Icons, 2012-2013

After completing her Masters degree at Bard, Stoicheff made the unlikely decision to begin incorporating imagery into her nonobjective work. Not one for baby steps, she began to produce imagery at the same large scale in which she had been working abstractly. Relearning the language of image-making, the works were decidedly graphic at the beginning becoming more painterly and precise with time. In both object and subject, Stoicheff sought vessels of cultural power that have customarily indicated status, mythologized heroes and expressed national pride. She flips this convention by focusing not only on the heroic, but also on the villainous.