Ana Barriga @ Carl Kostyal

Ana Barriga’s paintings are considered to be “pretty and raffish,” containing “bits of reality that no longer mean anything,” such as plastic figurines, tchotchkes, porcelain doo-dads and bits of bric-a-brac.  Items she encounters on regular visits to flea markets, souks, bazaars, rastros and marchés au puces. These she “sources,” “breaks,” “paints,” “manipulates” and otherwise “transforms” into tabletop arrangements, which she then photographs to use as jumping off points for her celebrated oil and enamel canvases of smudged, graffitied, sprayed and otherwise altered kitsch fantasias.