Malmö, Sweden, Oct 29, 2010 – Taking the wraps off one of the most anticipated features and worst kept secrets, Loyal reveals today that the New York artist FRANCINE SPIEGEL’s exhibition THE VISIT is coming to Sweden.

In the foothills of the Catskill Mountains of New York sits an octagon shaped house. This is the house of Francine Spiegel. Created this year in her upstate studio amidst the silence of this wooded retreat, The Visit tells the strange, fragmented story of ordinary characters in ordinary places confronted with overwhelmingly extraordinary challenges.

Inspired by the heroines from horror films, at once happy, self-destructive, defeating, powerful and pathetic, the work moves into territory well beyond the shock barrier. These archetypal women, excessively feminine, innocent and wholesome are culled from the world of horror, where the most shattering images of subconscious desires and fears are found. The figure rises out of the mess, peeling away the gore to explore the psychology underneath and stripping away the social mask. The creature that emerges is enchanting and alluring rather than horrific.

Set in simple idyllic scenes such as a bedroom and kitchen table, the viewer is handed the experience of having safety stripped away. What was once well known and had long been familiar returns, and normality dissolves into an elegant chaos, insanely messy yet never nasty.

Spiegel has taken extra special care to retain the essential ingredients of her Zombie game, and has also crafted a nice surprise. The resulting paintings are a massive eruption of astringent sweet and sour electric color and texture, a collage of references and experiences. The execution is detailed and exquisite, a painterly technical sophistication more than expressive action.

Francine Spiegel is an artist who thrives in the fusion of alternating forces, working with performance to create a whole new experience of imagery for her paintings. The brutal mess and action is in the process and lies in the creation of imagery. Taking the pastries out of the case and throwing them on each other, in all their sweet gooey glory.

Under the guiding hand and direction of Francine Spiegel, from this messy chaos comes a sense of psychological release associated with tragic ritual drama. Even at its most gruesome and disturbing, Spiegel manages to conjure up imagery with beauty and a sense of exuberance out of the experience.

The Visit includes Zombie Un-Dead Who Make Their Return in The Year’s Highly Anticipated Solo Exhibition by Francine Spiegel.

Find and discover new limits go beyond ordinary boundaries
create new character
see what can happen
embrace the horrific

Francine Spiegel received her BFA from Rhode Island School of Art and Design in 1997. Her work was featured in A New York Minute at the MACRO Future Museum in Rome curated by Kathy Grayson, Portugal Arte - A Survey of Contemporary Art in Lisbon Summer 2010, Mail Order Monsters, a traveling exhibition of “monstrous figuration” at Deitch Projects, New York, Andreas Melas Presents, Athens, Peres Projects, Berlin and Max Wigram, London, Fractured Figure curated by Jeffrey Deitch and Kathy Grayson for the DESTE Foundation, and Mad Love-Young Art from Danish Private Collections, Arken Museum, Copenhagen, among others. Her work first appeared at Loyal in the group exhibition The Ice Cream Show at Loyal in Stockholm, 2008. This is her first solo exhibition with Loyal and her first in Europe