Opening Reception: Saturday, March 8, 6 – 8 pm

Octavia Art Gallery is pleased to present, Perception of Paradise, featuring recent works by Emilie Duval & Danielle Frankenthal.
 

Emilie Duval’s paintings focus on the delicate tension between nostalgia and technological transformation, where the imagery of utopian mid-century modernity collides with the fragmented, transient nature of our digital age. She reimagines iconic motifs, palm trees, modernist architecture, and serene landscapes, disrupted and reframed by digital textures and abstract distortions. The result is a vision of paradise that feels both aspirational and disquieting, familiar yet unraveling under the weight of modern complexities. She builds the surface with layers of acrylic paint, creating bold structures that act as the foundation of the work. Drawings and collages, sourced and altered to evoke both memory and invention, are integrated into the composition, merging seamlessly into the painted environment. Spray paint adds a raw, gestural energy, creating moments of spontaneity and dissonance. This multi-layered approach reflects the fragmentation of perception in a world where the organic and the artificial are increasingly intertwined. Influenced by David Hockney’s vibrant use of color and spatial precision, she reinterprets his aesthetic not as a celebration of simplicity but as a means to probe the instability of beauty and the disruptions of modern life. Duval states, “I invite viewers to question the landscapes we construct, consume, and inhabit, both real and imagined and to consider how the ideals of the past are reshaped, perhaps even undone, by the forces of our digital present.”
 

Danielle Frankenthal’s work is about light in all its valences: as the specific light, which is color, as the most humanly perceivable for of pure energy which allows us sight, and as the great spiritual metaphor. Her formalistic concerns are mark and color over a strong albeit sometimes elusive substructure. She paints on transparent Acrylite® layers to mimic the way the viewer sees through their cultural programming and life experiences. The works are light interactive and change with the ambient light and the viewer’s position. Frankenthal brings the viewers’ attention to light, thus to time and the preciousness of evanescent things.
 

Duval studied the History of Art at the École du Louvre and Law at the University of Paris and currently lives between Houston and New York City. She has exhibited throughout the United States and Europe including recent solo exhibitions at Arts Fort Worth, TX; Patrick Mikhail Gallery, Montreal; and at Heidi Vaughan Fine Art, TX. Select group exhibitions were at Hollis Taggart Gallery, NY; the Luminaria Festival in San Antonio, TX; among others. Her work has been featured in Art Houston Magazine, where she was nominated Artist of the Year in 2024, and in New American Paintings. Duval’s newest public art commissions include Digital Convergences for the new Terminal D at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport. She was nominated Patron for the Houston French Alliance in 2024. 
 

Frankenthal studied at Brandeis University and the Arts Student’s League, NYC, and she is currently based in New Jersey. She has primarily exhibited throughout the United States and in Guatemala. Select solo exhibitions have been at Mizuma and Kips Gallery, NY; Wade Wilson Art, TX; Exhibit ‘A’ Gallery, NY; and at the Columbus Museum of Art, GA. She has been in group exhibitions at the American University Museum, DC; Plains Art Museum, ND; Art Basel, Switzerland; and the Contemporary Art Museum, TX. Her works are found in the collections of The Butler Institute of American Art, OH; The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, TX; and the McNay Art Museum, TX, among others.