Natalie Featherston: High Quality Fakes

Natalie Featherston

High Quality Fakes

Meyer

Natalie Featherston High Quality Fakes

October 21 - November 3, 2022

Meyer Gallery

For her 2022 Solo Exhibition, High Quality Fakes, Natalie Featherston presents a new body of work in her signature trompe l’oeil painting style, featuring whimsical subject matter that engages the viewer with both humor and intrigue. In addition, a very important early career painting of Featherston’s will be presented as part of this exhibition. Luck of the Draw is a 40” x 30” painting created in 2001 that mysteriously went missing around 2005. The painting has recently resur faced after 17 years, and the artist will view it again for the first time for her 2022 show at Meyer Gallery.

Featherston describes the piece: “In 2001, I created one of most ambitious paintings of my career. It was the big piece for my first solo exhibition in New York City. Measuring 40 x 30 inches, it was colossal for an artist who makes small, high resolution trompe l’oeil paintings. It was titled, Luck of the Draw and featured all the language, symbols and imagery we associate with luck, fate, and the whims of fortune. Horse shoes, playing cards, a vintage lottery game of giant dice in a cage, even a magic eight ball- all of it laid out on a table like a gambler’s smorgasbord complete with a pistol, lit cigar and a shot of whiskey. Presiding over all of this was a black leather motorcycle jacket turned to the wall, revealing a back panel painted with a memento mori of Death dressed in a top hat and cravat. It’s a show stopper.”

The painting journeyed from Featherston’s studio, located in New Jersey at the time, to a gallery in San Francisco, where it was consigned along with several other paintings. It was eventually moved to the gallery’s second location in Las Vegas and after that, “things get murky,” according to the artist. She says:

“This was twenty years ago, and now I can hardly recall what the Wordle of the day was by lunch time. But as I remember it, there was some discussion about where, exactly, the painting was. The gallery director thought it could be at the other store in Las Vegas, he would get back to me. And then, no, not in Vegas, it must be in storage in San Francisco…and time passed. Then one day, I saw online that the gallery had closed.”

Reluctantly, Featherston moved on – although she regretted not getting to the bottom of the painting’s whereabouts. “Rather than making noise, asking questions, documenting the transaction of every email and phone call, filing a police report or even hiring a lawyer I did none of it. I just let it slip away, thinking if it had been a better painting it would have sold, and let some excruciatingly low self-esteem cloud my judgement. Over the years the painting would cross my mind and I’d wonder what happened to it, but the mere thought became so painful I stopped thinking about it entirely.”

Seventeen years later, an artist reached out to Featherston on Instagram claiming he’d seen the painting in Palm Beach, and congratulated her on the work. Initially confused, Featherston went into a panic: but after some advising, researching and negotiating, Featherston reclaimed the piece. It’s journey over the years still remains somewhat of a mystery – with the original gallery owner claiming it was simply moved but remained in their inventory for all that time.

“The fairytale ending?” Featherston says, “I’m going to see my painting again at my solo show in Santa Fe this fall, 21 years after I painted it in a basement studio in New Jersey. I still have that black leather motorcycle jacket with the portrait of Death emblazoned across the back, and I’m wearing it to the opening. I’ve been through a lot over the years since I paint ed Luck of the Draw and so has the painting, including its bizarre gap in provenance. My career has flourished, and I’ve become savvy about managing my career as a professional artist. I show at wonderful galleries across the country where I have excellent partnerships with the owners, and I make a good living as a painter.”

Painted in 2001, “Luck of the Draw” is an early career painting newly available from artist Natalie Featherston, and remains one of her largest and most ambitious pieces to date.

This painting recently resurfaced in Palm Beach after having gone missing from a gallery in San Francisco under mysterious circumstances around 2005. In a bizarre twist of fate, one of Natalie’s Instagram followers saw the painting in hanging in the Florida gallery a few weeks ago, and on a whim messaged her to say how much he liked it. After the shock of discovering her painting had reappeared, Natalie was able to recover the piece. Her opening at Meyer Gallery is the first time she’s seen the painting in more than twenty years.

“Luck of the Draw” is a modern-day memento mori featuring all the language, symbols and imagery we associate with fate, luck and the whims of fortune- the irony that this particular piece would have such a storied tale is not lost on the artist. Parts of the painting’s history and provenance will always be unknown, but Natalie is grateful for the painting’s return.

If you’d like to know more about this painting’s story, please click on the link below and read an article Natalie wrote about the experience “Lost and Found.”

“LOST

by Natalie Featherston

Natlie Featherston High Quality Fakes

Price list

Anywhere But Here

Balance Rocket Ray Gun True Love Never Dies

Boom

Chocolate Understands

Portrait of Oscar Wilde

oil oil oil oil oil oil oil

18 x 19 16.25 x 14 14 x 11 x 2 20 x 16 18 x 13 18 x 13 14 x 11

$9,000 $7,200 $6,800 $7,800 $4,200 $4,200 $4,600

Natlie Featherston High Quality Fakes

Price list

Portrait of Edgar Degas

of the Draw

Peppers

Peppers

in a Bottle

Nestled

Safe Haven

x11

oil oil oil oil oil oil

x 30

x 8 x 2 8 x 8 x 2

x 8 x 2

x 6 x 2

x 8 x 2

$16,500 $5,200 $5,200 $5,800 $4,200 $6,200