YELLOW FINE ARTS
Marianne McGinnis
Artist Statement
LadyGod’s artmaking began as an escape from her big loud family. She fell headfirst into the fashion magazines that her mother subscribed to. She developed a fascination with the images of women and fashion in Vogue, W Mag.,Harper's Bazaar and others. Her studio practice is a continuation of that, a daily escape from the outside world into one of her own making, moniker first.
LadyGod is a second-self adopted by Marianne McGinnis to allow the artist to delve more freely into her psyche, to mine it for memory, history and narrative. She is a multi-disciplinary artist who makes playful and gently sardonic work.
LadyGod is making a lifelong collection of art that will become a magazine of her own time. Her studio is filled with her small sculptures and the readymade figurines and detritus collected and found over many years that may walk into a painting, or spark other ideas for work. There is a roster of iconography pulled either from these studio inhabitants that is familiar in her work, the red rose, chains, disembodied feet and hands, manicured nails, eyes, etc.
She culls images from social media and pop culture, nature, history and religion. She chose icons/influencers such as Miss Piggy, Kim Kardashian and J.Lo. and others. She paints mostly women because they are more interesting to the eye. Her portraits are made with reverence, fantasy and satire. LadyGod made Kim Kardashians ponytail so long that it can hold her phone and take selfies for her! A portrait of Jennifer Lopez using the entirety of a cardboard box for each plane of the head represents a faceted self. Titles are important and LadyGod can create a work, title first, such as in her painting “Adam and Eve Bookin’ it from the Garden of Eden. On him: Jumpsuit, Dries Van Noten. On her: Dress, Dries Van Noten, Jewelry, Stylist’s Own.” She dresses them in couture for their ouster from paradise. Like a fashion editorial, it’s irreverent, the basic component of her world is humor.
LadyGod lived in New York City for 26 years. It informed her work with its intoxicating fumes of brash beauty, newness and funniness, a Vogue magazine came to life! She left NYC recently, for the city of her birth, Philadelphia. She is adjusting to the pleasant slowness of her new surroundings. Nature has become a focus here and shows up in her work as a new character.
She anthropomorphizes flowers and animals in a tribute to her 70’s childhood love of the Muppets, Fraggle Rock and Saturday morning cartoons. LadyGod is in charge in the studio.She is the creator who breathes life into fierce and funny portraits of independent women, nobody’s and celebs.
LadyGod walks through the world as an urban dwelling, fashion-forward, funny feminist artist, and it is from this identity that her work flows.