Neon Parc

Extending her long-term obsession with painted album covers, ‘Queen Bitch’ introduces a new medium—copper plates—as the base for her works. Historically tied to religious art and two-sided devotional paintings of the 1500s, the hand-polished copper surfaces resonate with Ahern’s subjects. For example, Side One may bear the meticulous rendering of a young Prince, staring blankly with naked shoulders and a peachy mustache, while Side Two features a loosely sketched study of a domestic mid-morning bedroom scene—clothes strewn, hair tousled. By painting on copper—a medium historically associated with religious art—Ahern positions her works as objects of worship rather than vinyl records. Whether depicting a sultry mermaid perched atop a twilight mount, two half-drunk boys snapped in an anonymous bedroom, or a young girl in a summery dress knocking gently at a ramshackle window, Ahern’s paintings capture fleeting, intimate moments with a dreamlike quality.

Ahern’s art emerges from a dynamic fusion of historical sources and personal inspiration, which she deftly weaves together through her painting style. Her subjects, along with their attendant historical contexts, dissolve into one another: art into entertainment, entertainment into history, history into fashion. In the end, it is Ahern’s sentiment that prevails above all. She breathes life into portraiture by allowing personal connection to transcend conventional genres, expanding in the vacuum of anonymity that media culture perpetuates in a global economy of images. Her work restores the personal and the eccentric where there was none, proving that a longed-for excess of emotional attachment can arise—though moments before, one might have seen only a deficiency. In this sense, Ahern’s art is deeply Romantic, a revival of idealism and a revolt against reason.