Leah Schrager “It’s Just A Phase”
Online Solo Exhibition
Presented by The Untitled Space
September 19 – December 20, 2024
The Untitled Space is pleased to present “It’s Just A Phase”, an online solo exhibition of early works by artist Leah Schrager, exclusively on Artsy from September 19 through December 20, 2024. Curated by gallery founder Indira Cesarine, the exhibition spotlights Schrager’s provocative self-portraits and digital mixed media works created between 2014 and 2018.
Schrager’s artwork explores the complex gaze placed on women throughout different life stages, using her own biography and online performance as source material. She acts as both subject and creator, utilizing her body as a canvas to question societal perceptions of femininity, celebrity, and power. “It’s Just A Phase” features many previously unreleased works from her notable series, including “The Female Painter”, “The Celebrity Project Act”, “Infinity Selfie”, “Cubist”, “Glitter Peach”, “Under Erasure”, and “Summer of Sex”.
Schrager’s early career was rooted in conceptual online performances such as @OnaArtist (with 5M Instagram followers) and The Naked Therapist, which helped establish her as a pioneering figure in contemporary art. These performances, and their reception, have fueled her exploration of how the female body is viewed, commodified, and censored in both the art world and digital spaces. Schrager’s signature digital works often employ a painterly aesthetic that merges photography with new media, challenging traditional boundaries in both form and content.
This exhibition marks an important moment to revisit Schrager’s early career, as her artistic practice has since evolved with her life experiences, including her recent move to the Sonoran Desert and becoming a mother in 2024. As she now embraces motherhood and incorporates AI into her creative process, “It’s Just A Phase” serves as a celebration of her past explorations of youth, sensuality, and the digital realm.
Exploring the female gaze, identity, and power, “It’s Just A Phase” features work from the following series:
The Female Painter (2014-2015)
A foundation of Schrager’s MFA thesis at Parsons, The Female Painter questions the act of self-representation. Schrager explores how a woman painting on an image of herself evokes emotional and conceptual resonance akin to a man painting on a blank canvas. This series merges photography and hand-painted elements, using the female body as both the subject and surface. The pieces were printed at home in small sizes, then enhanced with materials purchased from her MFA studio’s nearby art supply store. Schrager’s work from this series engages directly with feminist art discourse, provoking thought on the role of self-representation and control of the female image.
The Celebrity Project Act (2016-2018)
In The Celebrity Project, Schrager sought to appropriate her own image as a form of celebrity, reflecting on the commercialization of self and fame. Inspired by Richard Prince’s appropriation of celebrity imagery, Schrager turns the camera on herself, deliberately constructing her image for social media platforms like Instagram, where her persona @OnaArtist now has over 5 million followers. This series blurs the lines between reality and performance, engaging viewers in a conversation about celebrity, online identity, and the commodification of the female body.
Infinity Selfie (2016-2017)
In her Infinity Selfie series, Schrager addresses the constraints of social media censorship on the female body, particularly when it comes to nudity. To circumvent these restrictions, Schrager digitally multiplies self-portraits deemed inappropriate by social platforms, creating “infinite” versions of the same image, rendering them suitable for online sharing. This signature series cleverly subverts censorship while continuing to explore the boundaries between public and private, acceptable and taboo.
Cubist (2017-2018)
In Cubist, Schrager experiments with digitally manipulating her self-portraits to reflect the fragmented nature of identity in the digital age. Using the Painter software, she disassembles and reassembles her own image in a style reminiscent of Cubist art, drawing attention to the multiple, sometimes contradictory facets of a woman’s self-perception and the gaze imposed upon her by society. The resulting images, which range from abstract to geometric, challenge traditional understandings of portraiture and identity.
Glitter Peach (2017)
In Glitter Peach, Schrager embellishes her self-portraits with layers of digital glitter to examine themes of sexuality, love, and emotion. The glitter becomes a metaphor for the performative aspects of femininity—bright, alluring, yet inherently surface-level. By overlaying digital sparkle on modeling photos, Schrager interrogates the ways women’s emotions and bodies are often commodified and trivialized.
Under Erasure (2018)
Inspired by Derrida’s concept of différance, Under Erasure explores the censorship and erasure of the female body in the media and online. The photographs, which are of Schrager herself, are digitally marked with traces of erasure, symbolizing how women’s bodies are often hidden or manipulated to fit societal norms. This series delves into how female bodies in art and media are “corrected,” edited, or erased altogether, shedding light on the politics of visibility.
Summer of Sex (2017)
Commissioned by Glamour magazine, the Summer of Sex collection captures the exuberant freedom of female sexuality. Schrager hosted a photoshoot at a New York City hotel with friends and fellow models, then digitally manipulated the images to emphasize the joy, rebellion, and celebration of female sensuality. The resulting series playfully embraces the complexity of women’s relationships with their bodies and sexuality, inviting viewers to reflect on the intersections of intimacy, identity, and liberation.
Schrager’s early works vividly capture the experience of being a young, online artist in the 2010s, grappling with censorship, celebrity, and the commodification of the female body. As Schrager moves into a new phase of her life and art—living in the Sonoran Desert and embracing motherhood—now is the perfect moment to revisit the bold, provocative self-examinations that defined her early practice.
About Leah Schrager
Leah Schrager is an artist who has garnered comparisons to Marina Abramovic, Marcel Duchamp, and Laurel Nakadate for her innovative use of digital platforms and conceptual performance. With an MFA from Parsons, her work has been shown in prestigious venues including the Fotografiska Museum, the Museum of Sex, and the Museum of Visual Art in Leipzig. Schrager’s digital performance personas, including @OnaArtist and The Naked Therapist, have been widely featured in major media outlets including Art Forum, VICE, The Huffington Post, The NY Daily News, and Playboy. Her work has additionally been featured on T.V. shows including The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, CBS News, and ABC News.
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