The women wear high-collared puffer jackets and billowing sports jerseys, the fabrics richly painted in acid yellow and bubblegum pink. Bathed in cool light against shadowy backdrops, they seem to glow as they regard the viewer dispassionately with an aristocratic air.
For the past few years, the Spanish artist Nieves González has taken the earthy backdrops, dramatic lighting and opulent fabrics typical of Spain’s Baroque period and pulled them into the future. The artist’s imagined female subjects possess the demeanor of an ambitious noblewoman or devoted saint, but their wardrobes are wholly contemporary.
They are also imbued with a touch of the absurd: Some hold pool inflatables or sports…