Fairy tales are grasping at a world that can never be. Maybe a painting is a fairy tale? It’s a reflection of our world, but with a spin on it that makes it forever unattainable. Like a bug preserved in crystal, you can’t get to it without breaking it all apart. What is reality? What is the dream? – Haley Josephs
Brooklyn-based painter Haley Josephs focuses on fantasy and femininity in her archetypal portraits, painted in the artist’s brushy, luminous style. The fairy tale scenes Jospehs create vary from light, elemental works, like this painting My Dolphin Fantasy, to darker scenes of post-apocalyptic anger and alienation. Here, the figure has a carefree aura as she emerges from an idealized ocean with whimsical dolphins leaping behind her. A graduate from Yale University’s MFA program, Josephs has exhibited in the US, Mexico, and China, and her work is in the collection of the X Museum, Beijing, among others.