BIO

Angel Wagner is an artist based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She is a self-taught oil painter who specializes in portraiture, symbolism, and painting women from the female gaze. Her imagery is figurative and surreal and involves her own personal lexicon of symbols. Her influences include the great women surrealists, the Art Deco period, and positive psychology.

Wagner’s feminist painting is impacted by her sixteen years working as a licensed counselor with women. The themes in her paintings echo the themes in her work as a counselor: healing, transformation, and strength. Her work is about validating, empowering, and honoring women. Wagner’s work is in private collections throughout the United States.

ARTIST STATEMENT

As a counselor for over 16 years, I have worked with thousands of people on changing their self-limiting beliefs and manifesting their authentic life. The cognitive behavioral therapy I was providing helped me examine my own self-limiting beliefs around being an artist. While teaching meditation in group therapy, I started getting visual ideas for my own affirmations. Now I paint visual affirmations for women that express these visions.

 These are the kind of paintings I long to see in the world, as the modern world isn't so modern for women. Galleries and museums throughout the world are filled with images of naked women without agency. Lawmakers are walking back women’s rights daily. My paintings are visual affirmations of women and girls manifesting their freedom, transformation, strength and power.  These paintings have helped me articulate both the wound and the resolution/revolution. More importantly they have helped me manifest my true self and life.