Good girl solo
Sarah Bereza paints "Good Girl." She is the privileged, daddy-bonding American in pearls.
Skinny blonde girls marry rich men-- and Kappa Kappa Gamma is the blondest sorority in America. Bereza, while attending the University of Michigan, was a dutiful member of the committee to punish bad sorority girls. Good is not the same as dumb. It is a useful conceit and a marvelous game. Mom approves.
There is a somewhat naivete to Bereza's paintings, reminiscent of seventies Brit pop artist Peter Blake. Twizzlers and Starburst are accessories as important as Haviana flip-flops, underwire bras, Mac lipstick, Trojan condoms and marabou shrugs. One sees in these works the simple, stylized happiness of Sylvia Sleigh venus boys.
Fashion designer Betsey Johnson is a major influence on the artist. She likes it ever so slightly trashy. Five years in London gave Bereza a new respect for white hooker boots. The good girl," she notes, "enjoys a buffer zone of decadence." There needs to be a little tease in the sport, after all. Thus Bereza's affection for the spilling bustier of Rubens, and all things Rubens.
Bereza is also influenced, for those who know the work, by the figurative paintings of Mathew Cerletty, who shows at Rivington Arms. The two had adjacent studios above Burr Dodd's Brooklyn Fireproof in Greenpoint. But at heart, Bereza is still Kappa Kappa Gamma Womanly and True.® Her scrutiny may be unforgiving, but it is also dear.
Sarah Bereza had her first solo show last year at Real Art Ways in Hartford. This is her New York solo debut.
