The Release of Our Former Self Painting

Elisa Valenti is a self-taught contemporary figurative painter whose works delight in the beauty and vigor of real, luscious bodies. Valenti’s paintings are a sensuous celebration of form. Voluptuous figures reach, twist and revel in a Fauvist dance across the canvas, honoring their vessels. The bodies Valenti paints serve as a looking glass for those whose own bodies have been underrepresented in modern and contemporary art. Growing up in a culture where body-positivity did not yet exist and worthiness could only be equated with thinness, it wasn’t until Valenti started painting bodies that looked like hers that her journey of self love began. Utilizing arresting colors evocative of the Fauves and Cubist color-blocking, Valenti adapts two iconic styles pioneered by men and flips the gaze inward. As well, she draws inspiration from her mother’s career as a lingerie sample-maker and master dress maker, venerating the celestial mounds and valleys of the female form. Each brushstroke highlighting the curve of a hip or roll of flesh is an act of defiance – a celebration of radical worthiness.