Portraitist Alannah Farrell paints and pays tribute to their queer friends, lovers, and neighbors in atmospheric, emotional, and brooding environments. Conversations around portraiture uncover questions of identity, gaze, style, and expression. Farrell’s work touches on these, but moves confidently into personal questions about the human psyche, gender dysphoria, and selfhood.
The works are charged with a complex tenderness, revealing an intimacy and trust between artist and sitter. Farrell presents these queer individuals through a lens of understanding and connection, a context shielded from a society eager to erase or enact violence. Informed by art historical traditions, each work is executed using a classical grisaille underpainting before the glazing layers introduce pastel haze and traveling light.
Farrell paints thoughtfully and attentively from life. These paintings depict more than a moment, rather time itself unfurling before our eyes—shifting light, shifting weight, the emergence of the inner world. They describe the process of inviting sitters into the studio as an adrenaline rush—having to work with time as a restriction and the challenge of attempting to capture what is full of life and motion into a singular image.
Alannah Farrell (b. 1988, Kingston, NY) is a queer painter who lives and works in New York, NY. Farrell completed their BFA at The Cooper Union, New York, NY in 2011. They have exhibited their work in solo and group exhibitions at galleries including Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles, CA; Green Family Art Foundation, Dallas, TX; Harper’s, New York, NY; Richard Heller Gallery, Santa Monica, CA; The Painting Center, New York; Theirry Goldberg Gallery, New York; and UTA Artist Space, Los Angeles.
Alannah Farrell Maddox, Jasiel, and Frankie in the studio (Bushwick), 2023
Oil, acrylic, flashe, and spray paint on canvas
130" x 70" [HxW] (330.2 x 177.8 cm)
Inventory #AF1026
Alannah Farrell Studio, Golden Hour (Downtown Los Angeles), 2023
Oil, acrylic, flashe, and spray paint on canvas
60" x 80" [HxW] (152.4 x 203.2 cm)
Inventory #AF1042
Alannah Farrell A (Downtown Los Angeles), 2023
Watercolor, acrylic, and colored pencil on paper
Framed 19" x 15" x 1 ¹⁄₂" [HxWxD] (48.26 x 38.1 x 3.81 cm); Unframed 16" x 12" [HxW] (40.64 x 30.48 cm)
Inventory #AF1040
Alannah Farrell Kassia & Steph & Mochi (Downtown Los Angeles), 2023
Watercolor, acrylic, and spray paint on paper
Framed 19" x 15" x 1 ¹⁄₂" [HxWxD] (48.26 x 38.1 x 3.81 cm); Unframed 16" x 12" [HxW] (40.64 x 30.48 cm)
Inventory #AF1039
Alannah Farrell Study for Omari (FiDi), 2023
Watercolor, acrylic, colored pencil and spray paint on paper
Framed 19" x 15" x 1 ¹⁄₂" [HxWxD] (48.26 x 38.1 x 3.81 cm); Unframed 16" x 12" [HxW] (40.64 x 30.48 cm)
Inventory #AF1037
Alannah Farrell Dusty (Downtown Los Angeles), 2023
Watercolor, acrylic, and colored pencil on paper
Framed 19" x 15" x 1 ¹⁄₂" [HxWxD] (48.26 x 38.1 x 3.81 cm); Unframed 16" x 12" [HxW] (40.64 x 30.48 cm)
Inventory #AF1034
Painter Alannah Farrell Brings Us Inside Their Studio as They Put the Finishing Touches on a New L.A. Solo Show
Creating just the right mood of comfortable collaboration is key to this process, said Farrell, noting their studio acts something like a stage. “Whatever time we share in the studio filters into my excitement in doing the work.” — Katie White
A Rich, Somber, Undercurrent: An Interview of Alannah Farrell
This queer, trans-identifying artist from rural New York gracefully depicts the real bodies of their queer scene in atmospheric paintings, the magic of which stems from the shapely emotional nuances of each subject. — Stella Peacock-Berardini
It’s Much Louder Than Before, organized by James Bartolacci and Stefano di Paola, inexplicably lies at the taut deliberations between the adaptability and reconciliation of a party world of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. — Ricky Amadour
Many of Alannah Farrell’s paintings pay tribute to queer life in New York, depicting friends, lovers, and dancers in intimate, surreal spaces. Portraiture seems to come easily to them, their subjects exuding a confident vitality in style and expression. — Billy Anania
ALL THESE ARTWORKS HAVE BEEN CENSORED BY INSTAGRAM
“I was disappointed but not surprised,” said artist Alannah Farrell about Instagram taking down an image of their work “Cutlet” (2021) about an hour after it was posted earlier this summer. The drawing portrays a figure sliding a blade under their right breast, and like many of Farrell’s works, it evokes a poignant vulnerability. —Hyperallergic
Each portrait is part memory, part narrative, and all raw truth. Farrell’s work firmly places the identities and lives of those within the artist’s queer community into the limelight, solidifying their place in the history of portraiture. —Christina Nafziger
“History of Violence,” An Exhibition by Alannah Farrell at Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles
The artist portrays their inner circle of friends and creative community with a tenderness and intimacy that combats the alienation and violences of modern queer life.
8 LGBTQIA+ Artists on Self-Portraiture and Expressions of Pride
They determine gesture, form, light, color, and the inclusion or exclusion of body parts; what we see is something that the artist sees within themselves, an assertion of selfhood and visibility. “It’s a power shift from being defined to defining yourself,” said artist Alannah Farrell. “A reclaiming of identity.”
Also set to feature is Alannah Farrell whose vivid narrative paintings, like the controversial Sam and Richard (2019), celebrate queer identity and sexuality while also challenging some of the conventional assumptions that fuel gender-based prejudice. —Art & Object
Creating Portraits, Communicating Emotion: An Interview with Alannah Farrell
Alannah Farrell’s portraits are as intimate as they are honest, glowing under the pale light of the moon or the rosy haze of dawn in New York City. A simple gesture like placing your hands over someone’s knee becomes a noteworthy act. — Christina Nafziger
A Print For a Good Cause – Alannah Farrell in an Interview
"As a queer New Yorker, I've found many kindred spirits here, and I am happy to be here even if we are on pause. Ultimately, this is why I'm eager to support the Ali Forney Center with my current project, a limited edition print via The Linocut London. The AF Center's mission 'to protect LGBTQ youths from the harms of homelessness' is even more crucial in light of this pandemic!" —Alannah Farrell
Worlds Without Rooms: Otherworldly Vignettes by Alannah Farrell
Farrell’s images surge with an ethereal aura reminiscent of Orthodox church icons in shrines or deities adorning the entrances of Hindu temples. Her paintings are installed on walls of a carefully chosen hue, heightening this implicit sense of awe. —Audra Lambert
It’s in the gently strange flesh tones and only-just inert, wee-bit-winkingly-quickened poses of certain sitters. It’s in the way some of them look not merely at you directly or askance, but into you perhaps to rise up to bite, shock or seduce you, or maybe murder you, or maybe love you. —Paul D’Augostino
Image of the Day: Alannah Farrell, Sanctuary (Magdalena), 2019
Painting in a style she describes as “faux realism”, the artist uses mainly muted colour palettes with a splash of brightness to signify her experience with sleep paralysis according to The Painting Center, which is showing her work from this week in a show entitled Worlds without Rooms.
Alannah Farrell’s Portraits of the Lower East Side
Moving to the East Village as a teen–a completely opposite landscape–she became fascinated by the nightlife scenes, its dualistic nature, a kind of hide-and-seek, where one can simultaneously lose themselves while finding solace amongst like-minded misfits.
"Lighting in photography is what really got me hooked into the medium, the way light and shadow create and manipulate the mood. I still use many of those techniques in my paintings." —Alannah Farrell
Alannah Farrell’s Worlds Without Rooms pulls back the curtain on millennial struggles and insecurities
Farrell tempts the viewer by portraying the room in colour and the sitter in grisaille with the faintest hints of reflective colour, further accented by the deep turquoise chair she is sitting in. Just like in the paintings in many motel rooms, this one is framed in a gaudy gold frame. —Katy Cowan
"Many of the objects and details act as clues, like clues in a true crime story... I want viewers to look at those details and wonder what happened here? What is the model thinking?Without attempting some sense of tension and mystery I would get bored!" —Alannah Farrell
“I’m drawn to individuals that exist on the threshold between ugly, beautiful, male, female, flawed and idealized; individuals which access my raw, emotionally charged view of humanity. My portraits combine hand-painted backdrops, artificial and natural settings to create narratives for which the subject lives in. Recurring narrative themes focus on mystery, gender, uninhibited feeling and personal history.” —Alannah Farrell
D'Agostino, Paul. "The Painting Center, Present Company, Talking Pictures, NURTUREart, Slag, SOHO20, M. David & Co., Fresh Window, Studio 10." Art Spiel. April 12.
Chan, Mar. "Worlds Without Rooms." Office. April 10.
"Image of the Day." Elephant. March 26,
Panda Bear, BJ. "ALANNAH FARRELL." Flaunt. March 26.
D'Agostino, Paul. "The Painting Center, Present Company, Talking Pictures, NURTUREart, Slag, SOHO20, M. David & Co., Fresh Window, Studio 10." Art Spiel. April 12.
"Alannah Farrell." Wall Street International Magazine. March 6.
Cowan, Katy. "Alannah Farrell’s Worlds Without Rooms pulls back the curtain on millennial struggles and insecurities." Creative Boom. March 1.
"Alannah Farrell's Portraits of the Lower East Side." Art & Object. March 25