Angela Piehl

assistant curator and contributing writer Y Que? Queer Art Made in Texas

November 4, 2015

Angela Piehl is a painter who works primarily in oil on birch panel. Angela's recent works abstracted from photo sources and small-scale still life arrangements. These pieces are an investigation of mass media images that relate to gender. Angela juxtaposes abstract moments from the backgrounds of advertising in "lifestyle" magazines (like Martha Stewart Living, etc.) with the luxury items that are often used in contemporary culture to create a particular gender identity.

Angela emulates these mass media sources by building small still life arrangements and taking digital photos as a sketching process. She then paints these dissimilar elements and abstracts them to create a cohesion that feels tentative and shifting. Her investigation stems from the observation of distress as it relates to gender and the many complex levels this distress can embody, while including a subtle critique of painting as a creative medium.

Angela received her B.F.A. from the University of Texas in Austin with a concentration in Painting and Printmaking. She pursued her graduate degree at the University of Arizona in Tucson, and received an M.F.A. in Painting and Drawing. Upon graduation, she began her teaching career and started exhibiting both nationally and internationally. Recent exhibitions include shows at the University of Massachusetts, Boston; La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles; and a traveling exhibit in Birmingham, UK. She is presently assistant curator for the upcoming group exhibition "Y QUE" at Landmark Arts Gallery in Lubbock, Texas.

Before coming to Oklahoma State, Angela taught as a visiting assistant professor at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio and Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas.

URL: https://library.okstate.edu/news/celebratingbooks/2008-honorees/angela-piehl

Last Updated: 14 January 2022