Looking at Sasha Gordon’s big full-bodied paintings, it’s impossible not to feel the emotion of what’s happening in her life. “I’m definitely a little like Taylor Swift,” she says, laughing. “If something bad happens, I need to paint it. Sometimes there’s a drought—an idea drought—where I don’t really have anything going on, and other times I’m super emotionally charged and manic, and I need to paint something.” That something is always herself.
Like Froth, her most recent painting, is all about the breakup of her “first-ever dating experience.” Gordon, who is half white, half Asian, queer, and 24, had never been in a relationship before. (The painting was recently in a group show at the Rudolph Tegners Museum outside of Copenhagen, alongside works by more established artists like Cecily Brown, Jenna Gribbon, and Sanford Biggers.) Nude and vulnerable, the young, porcelain-skinned woman in the painting is sitting on an isolated rock in the middle of the sea. The reference is to Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, but the vision is pure Gordon, and there’s no escaping the pain in her eyes. “I had emotions I’ve never dealt with before,” she tells me. “It felt very necessary to paint these feelings, how upset and disappointed I was by someone I truly trusted. During the relationship, I thought a lot about how the person I was seeing was white and how that was very validating for me.” She was devastated by the breakup, but she doesn’t regret it. “The heartbreak really helped my work,” she says. “The painting is so good.”
Denne historien er fra March 2023-utgaven av Vogue US.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra March 2023-utgaven av Vogue US.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Trust Your Gut - New at-home biome tests offer insight into the microorganisms that rule much more than just our stomachs.
According to a publication called Nutrition in Clinical Practice, these days, internet searches for "gut microbiome" and "gut microbiota" generate millions of results. Amazon teems with microbiome books, including microbiome books for kids- Meena and the Microbiome (forthcoming in 2025) and dogs- Healthy Gut, Healthy Dog. Gut health is taking over TikTok. Scan your refrigerator for the word "probiotic". Brands are shilling directly to your bacteria!
The First Wild Garden - A new book celebrates the historic English garden that launched a modern movement.
Without naming the most grotesque examples of tree mutilation in England, it is clear that much beauty is lost in our gardens by the stupid and ignorant practice of cutting trees into unnatural shapes,” wrote the Victorian-era gardener William Robinson in Gravetye Manor: Or Twenty Years’ Work round an Old Manor House (1911). Robinson’s fighting words were laid out in the preface to his book, an account of the decades he spent creating his garden at the Elizabethan house of Gravetye Manor in Sussex, England, and recently reproduced in facsimile by Rizzoli alongside stunning contemporary photographs.
Clean Sweep- Two seasons into her tenure at Carven, Louise Trotter is reimagining the label with pieces at once mindful, freeand beautiful.
Two seasons into her tenure at Carven, Louise Trotter is reimagining the label with pieces at once mindful, freeand beautiful. In February of last year, Trotter took up the role of creative director at the 79-year-old maison, reawakening it from a five-year slumber, and a chauffeur—customary for an artistic director at the helm of a Parisian fashion house—simply doesn’t fly with her bluff Sunderland upbringing.
Testament of Youth
In a new production of Romeo and Juliet, Jack Antonoff, Rachel Zegler, Kit Connor, and Sam Gold transform a classic into a timely, urgent work.
GLOWING UP FAST
I’m slick as an otter. I’m greased up like a Thanksgiving turkey
TIME'S ARROW
A celebrated Broadway-bound play by Jez Butterworth, The Hills of California, captures the youthful ambitions and dashed dreams of a quartet of English sisters.
The Shape of Things
Annabelle Selldorf has built a soaring career on gentle interventions, subtle forms—a design language of elegance and restraint. Dodie Kazanjian meets the architect of our moment.
SWING SHIFT
With the election of their lifetimes looming on the horizon, eight models— each of them with ties to a battleground state—tell us what’s important to them, what they’re fighting for, where they’re voting, and how they’re finding value and purpose in uneasy times.
Walk This Spray
Scented runways are the latest merger of perfume and fashion
Hidden Gems
With its timeworn cities and sweeping seascapes, the Southern Italian region of Basilicata is rich with splendors.
