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Bianca Fields

Bianca Fields (American, born 1995),Bugs in the Air,2022,
acrylic, oil and spray paint on yupo (mounted on panel), 36 x 24 inches.
Courtesy of the artist. © Bianca Fields.

Kansas City-based artist Bianca Fields (American, born 1995) began this series of paintings on yupo paper—a synthetic, smooth, non-absorbent surface—during the pandemic. Fields’s imagery has consistently been rooted in exaggerations of childhood subjects, including everyday food items and well-known cartoon characters that chronicle past and current moments. In this group of works selected for A New World—Women to Watch 2024, Fields introduces the mandrill monkey as the main subject. This figure embodies the duality of being both prominent and vulnerable: the monkeys’ bright colors, expressive eyes, and distinctive features draw interest, but they are often shy and are targets for poachers. Since 1978 they have been on the International Union for Conservation of Nature red list of threatened species.

The subject of the primate and Fields’s incorporation of symbols and marks, she says, reference her experiences that “have become the driving force [in] the way [she] thinks about improvisation,” particularly “the way society attempts to sculpt women of color into performative roles.” Situating the monkey within a new environment, one that is recontextualized into a space that draws closer overlap with the artist, creates a sense of mirroring and exchange of energies. The scale and portrait orientation of Fields’s canvases read as mirror-like, giving viewers a perception of reflection—of the artist, of society, of oneself. The subjects and expressive formal qualities of the work present a new space of contemplation—of the portrait, of how figure representations emerge from societal forces, and of ways in which memories evolve into temporal icons.