Bettina Magi “Movie cowboys”

Tanja Grunert Gallery

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Galerie Tanja Grunert presents Movie Cowboys, Bettina Magi’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. This exhibition features lush oil paintings of iconic Hollywood cowboys captured in dramatic poses from Western movies which the artist watched growing up. Whether the cowboy is a hero or anti-hero, he is cool, well dressed, and sexy. He represents America’s foundational myth of triumph over adversity.

A lone figure, the cowboy is in touch with nature. He is independent, heroic, resolutely masculine, and a redeemer in an isolated and harsh landscape. Magi draws inspiration form early Italian Renaissance artists such as Giotto, Mantegna and Piero della Francesca. She does all this while incorporating their motifs and compositional elements to amplify the connection to an old world narrative of redemption. In doing so, she combines the European myth with the new American myth. The narrative of facing an