DFN Gallery is pleased to present Selections from the Dangerous Women Series by Rafael Perez.  Shifting between tense, atmospheric oil paintings of ordinary dangerous women and subtle, compelling watercolors of female soldiers, Perez critiques traditional female forms and archetypes.  While the soldiers show a soft side – caring for a rifle as if it were an infant in Gun Cleaning or preening while on guard duty in Brushing, the civilian girls are decidedly up to no good.

DFN Gallery is proud to present Selections from the Dangerous Women Series by Rafael Perez.  Shifting between tense, atmospheric oil paintings of ordinary dangerous women and subtle, compelling watercolors of female soldiers, Perez critiques traditional female forms and archetypes.  While the soldiers show a soft side – caring for a rifle as if it were an infant in Gun Cleaning or preening while on guard duty in Brushing, the civilian girls are decidedly up to no good.

Perez is fascinated by the idea of "mundane evil," and his paintings expose the anxious, ominous underpinnings of traditional domestic situations.   His women often seem poised motionless in the midst of suspicious surroundings.  In House Fire, a woman sits and placidly sips a drink in her lawn chair as she watches her house go up in flames.  The topless subject of Badminton Player considers her self-satisfied reflection as she lights up a pre or post match cigarette. Has she done the deed or is she plotting?

Despite their stillness, these women often seem to be "caught in the act."  Perez calls them "the generic sirens of everyday life."  He frames his paintings as crime scenes; "the exact circumstances of each crime or wrong-doing are ambiguous; the clues are mysterious.  I want the viewers to invent stories and draw their own conclusions."  This open-ended quality of Perez's work draws us into the strange, mysterious worlds of these dangerous women and leaves us feeling unsettled by what we have seen.

Rafael Perez received his BFA degree from California College of Arts where he won the Jesse Cutting Richardson Award and later earned an MFA degree from the New York Academy of Art.  He has been in several group shows at DFN Gallery.  His Dangerous Women series was the inspiration for DFN Gallery’s 2008 summer group exhibition Dangerous Women.  This will be his first solo exhibition at DFN Gallery.