"Ptown Playgirl" by Meredith Iszlai

Reduction Linocut Print | 14” X 10” | 2025 | Edition 5/29

“Ptown Playgirl” is a reduction linocut printed in a varied edition of 25. Each print has a hand-painted message inside the speech bubble. The series was created at the DNA Residency in Provincetown, MA, so the logo for DNA is on the bottom left side of the print.

Meredith is a figurative artist who embraced craft materials after years of working at an art supply store. Stockpiling glitter, metal leaf, and neon paints--items that cause ocular assault, her interest in kitsch runs parallel to rendering the figure. While focused on elements of traditional figure painting, the tradition is playfully eroded through vulgar sexuality and garish surface. Tension between high and low runs both through the materials and how the figures are depicted. Deep colors of velvet are covered with pastel in contrast to metallic pigments and dollar-store confetti. Sleazy clothes and suggestive poses are portrayed as heroic. Surfaces are gilded with imitation leaf in campy opulence. She works to recreate female icons from porn, advertising, and pop-culture imagery who radiate agency, assertiveness, and humor. There is a discipline in her practice for studying the human form and its heritage in art, but a temptation for taboo in the tacky execution of her colorful characters. Meredith graduated from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design with a BFA in Painting in 2007.