Masterfully demonstrating Nicole Eisenman’s acclaimed figurative language, Winter Solstice 2012 Dinner Party presents the viewer with a sumptuous late night dinner party scene that pulsates with explosive pathos and narrative allusion. Painted in 2009, this work continues Eisenman’s over two decade-long investigation into the complexities of the human condition, which was most recently the subject of her acclaimed solo exhibition at the New Museum, New York, in 2016. Eisenman, whose provocative and subversive contribution to the 1995 Whitney Biennial first garnered her critical acclaim, has established herself as one of the most important figurative painters of her generation. Celebrated for the virtuosity with which she draws from both high and popular culture to explore contemporary social issues, the New York based artist was awarded the prestigious MacArthur Foundation ‘Genius Grant’ in 2015 and the Carnegie Prize in 2013.

While Eisenman’s early work overtly explored identity, gender, sexuality, family dynamics or inequality through provocative subject matter, Winter Solstice 2012 Dinner Party articulates her more recent preoccupation with portraits of individuals or groups engaged in different social activities – inspired equally by French Impressionist bourgeois café scenes, the dystopian visions of James Ensor and the casual gatherings with friends and fellow New Yorkers. With the present work, Eisenman puts forward a charged meditation on the relationship and psychological space between the individual and the group – prompting the viewer to consider the timelessness of human emotion.