Ambera Wellmann’s Surreal Paintings Cover Mugler Looks at Paris Fashion Week

In a Paris Fashion Week show this past weekend, several from Mugler’s 2024 ready-to-wear runway collection drew on the work of Ambera Wellmann, a painter whose work has steadily risen in prominence since her inclusion in the 2021 New Museum Triennial.

Many of Wellmann’s paintings show bodies that appear to combine across vast expanses of space. Figures from some of these paintings on dresses that were done in a collaboration with Mugler creative director Casey Cadwallader.

These figures were printed velvet that was affixed to the torsos, feet, and legs of models in skin-tight ensembles. WWD reporter Joelle Diedrich likened these garments to ones used in bondage.

The show was set against a black backdrop, and indeed voids have played a major role in Wellmann’s work. “I loved the darkness, and the way that things fall into darkness,” Wellmann said in a 2018 interview with Momus, alluding to how Bosch and Goya have been major fixations in her work.

In December, Wellmann was brought on by Hauser & Wirth, which started to jointly represent her alongside a smaller New York gallery, Company. Hauser & Wirth is planning a New York solo show for the Canadian artist this year, which will also see her included in South Korea’s Gwangju Biennale.

But despite the fanfare surrounding Wellmann, the mega-gallery did not announce her collaboration with Mugler in advance of the show. Instead, as far as the art world goes, the event occurred quietly, with Wellmann appearing in the audience beside the Mugler runway.