With diverse influences—Peter Beard, Coco Chanel,
Helmut Newton, Dadaists, Warhol, NOVA magazine—
Miami-based drip collagist Sky Farrell pays
homage to post-war pop iconography mixed with
sex & fashion. TREATS! visits the so-called “diva in
training” to discuss her crush on Jackson Pollock,
how she began painting with a tooth-brush, The
Mirror of Venus & stalking painter Chris Pape for
years in Gotham by Kenneth Kubernik
“My work is all about sexually charged and confident women
who have the power to enthrall,” says Sky Farrell as she
slaps paint onto a picture of a curvy model from the pages of
NOVA magazine. I’m standing in the darkened entranceway
of LA’s Smudge Studios, an unprepossessing photo studio
on trendy South La Brea in LA. Farrell has been flown out by
the studio to wield her cut-up magic on a few of its walls. The
vast wall opposite the front door is busy being transformed
from its load-bearing design into a panoptic showcase for the
wondrously inventive mind of Ms. Farrell. Running her hands
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continuously through her sun-streaked leonine mane, she
moves with a lithe, balletic grace, radiating a vibrant sensuality
that infects the raw physicality of her work. She speaks in a
rush of excitement, as if to stop and pause would be to impede
the all-important flow.
Unlike so many of her contemporaries, Farrell despises
the tidal pull of the digital toolbox, eschewing both electronic
capture and computer manipulations—no “Photoshop”
for her. Instead, she is armed with nothing more than a
lusty blade, some glue, acrylic paint and executive status