Beaux Mendes
Beaux Mendes’s paintings often seem to exist outside of time. Working within genres rarely seen in contemporary art, Mendes uses materials and techniques that are as uncommon as the subjects of their paintings. This presentation includes a selection of highly detailed anatomy studies that at times resemble landscapes. Some are painted on parchment, a material made from animal hide. In a sense these works can be understood as a meditation on the transformation of a body from one state to another. Dr. Lazarus, a large-scale, multifigure composition, stands apart from the others. Painted with distemper, a historical medium employing animal glue as a binder, it belongs to an antiquated category of paintings depicting the “operating theater.” It pictures four surgeons—three men, one with an erection, and one woman half-hidden in shadow—leaning over a patient. Mendes’s title refers to Lazarus, a biblical figure raised from the dead by Jesus, a subject of painting since the Renaissance. Mendes deployed visual symbolism characteristic of Lazarus paintings and of religious subjects in general. The multilayered field of reference reflected in this presentation shuttles the viewer between past and present, from inside history to outside of it.
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![Abstract painting in peach, red, and orange tones]()
Beaux Mendes, Untitled, 2024Oil on sheepskin parchment. 12 × 12 in. (30.5 × 30.5 cm). James Maltz Collection, London. Courtesy of the artist and Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York. Photo: Stephen Fraught
Beaux Mendes was born in 1987 in New York. Rooted in materiality and the direct observation of nature, their fragmentary and abstract works are animated by latent apparitional figures. Recent solo exhibitions include Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York (2024, 2022); Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin (2023); and STARS Gallery, Los Angeles (2021). Recent group exhibitions include ProjecteSD, Barcelona (2025); High Art, Paris (2025); 15th Gwangju Biennale, South Korea (2024); MAMOTH, London (2024); Derosia, New York (2024); DREI, Cologne (2023); Tureen, Dallas (2023); and Meredith Rosen Gallery, New York (2022). Mendes earned a BA at Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT (2010), and MFAs from the University of California, Los Angeles (2019), and Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY (2021).