You are currently viewing Contemporary Vanitas Series: 7 New Paintings by Saskia Ozols in Gryder Gallery’s “Beyond Realism” group show. August 3rd, 2024.
Vanitas III: Danse Macabre

Contemporary Vanitas Series: 7 New Paintings by Saskia Ozols in Gryder Gallery’s “Beyond Realism” group show. August 3rd, 2024.

Vanitas III: Danse Macabre, Saskia Ozols. Oil on Panel, 9″ x 12″ 2024

This series of 7 new paintings will be on view at Gryder Gallery in New Orleans Arts District. https://gryder.co/contact/ They will be part of a group exhibition of 5 artists contemporary artists working with representational or realist techniques. https://gryder.co/exhibitions/25-beyond-realism/overview/

My group of paintings are contemporary vanitas paintings. They explore the relationship between the material and the spiritual through the use of symbolic objects. Traditionally this genre was used in history for meditation on mortality, materiality, and meaning. 

In these works, I have contrasted antique and contemporary objects for the same end: to provide opportunity for contemplation on cycles of life alongside questions of mortality, ethics, and balance between intellectual or material pursuits.

Vanitas I: Rights of Spring, Oil on Panel. 24 x 12″ 2024. Available through Gryder Gallery. About the painting https://www.saskiaozols.com/2024/07/19/vanitas-i-rights-of-spring/

Vanitas II: Memento Mori. Saskia Ozols, oil on Panel, 24″ x 12″ 2024. Available through Gryder Gallery About the painting: https://www.saskiaozols.com/2024/07/20/vanitas-ii-memento-mori/

Spider Lillies. Saskia Ozols. 10″ x 10″ Oil on Panel, 2024. Available through Gryder Gallery About the painting: https://www.saskiaozols.com/2024/07/21/spider-lillies-2/

Peonies in a Dutch Porringer, Saskia Ozols. Oil on Panel, 11 x 14″ 2024 Available through Gryder Gallery.

This work is part of a series I will exhibit at Gryder Gallery in New Orleans. The exhibition opens August 3rd, 2024 in conjunction with the annual art event “White Linen Night.”

The two paintings below, Wilted & New Blossom, are companion pieces. Similar flowers -budding blossom alongside a than a wilted one. They are both the same scale and work together as a diptych.

New Blossom, Saskia Ozols. Oil on Panel. 5 x 7″ 2024

These two paintings are companion pieces and work together as a diptych. Wilted & New Blossom. 2 paintings, Saskia Ozols. 5″ x 7″ each. Oil on Panel, 2024.