Angela Burson's paintings of strangers invite you to figure out their mysterious stories

Having recently exhibited at Los Angeles' Hashimoto Contemporary gallery, Travelers is a curious collection of paintings featuring liminal spaces and the mysterious strangers that inhabit them. Expertly cropped by the Savannah College of Art and Design alumna, these images give nothing away without viewers studying them closely.

At first glance, they might appear to be pleasant enough paintings of living rooms, shoes and people, but some tell-tale details emerge on closer inspection. What does that bottle of prescription pills on the coffee table mean? Where is the smoking man with the suitcase going? And what message could possibly be contained in the woman's wax-sealed envelope? It's up to you to decide.

Adding to the intrigue is the composition. There are no faces here, only obscure details. Even familiar settings like a living room or objects like a television take on a strange, uncanny quality in Angela's paintings. This is a world you recognise but not one you know.

Pink sofa with a small dog lying on it, facing a coffee table scattered with mysterious objects, beneath a landscape painting in a stylised living room interior

Woman in white blouse and navy pleated skirt holding a white flower and wax-sealed envelope, with a gold-trimmed belt and red nail polish, standing in a room with vintage furniture and rotary telephone

Figure in bright yellow suit holding a martini glass with an olive, wearing a flower lapel pin and pocket square, against a dark background

If only the details in the paintings could speak and fill you in. What does the dog on the sofa know about what's happened in front of it? What do the discarded shoes and socks know about who kicked them off? We'll never know for sure, but the fun comes in piecing together a story of your own imagining.

Aptly described by Hashimoto Contemporary as a "memory of an encounter", these paintings deftly capture those fleeting strangers who dash through life's transient spaces. We all recognise them, dancing around at the edge of our field of vision, living lives we'll never quite understand. But in these paintings, Angela gives us a tantalising glimpse of them.

As an artist, Angela is influenced by anachronistic images of fashion and personal objects. This presents itself in Travelers through the peculiar wardrobes of the figures, which seem to collide with the furniture and technology of their surroundings.

Pinstripe suits and luggage bags from yesteryear sit uncomfortably alongside more contemporary interior spaces, all indicating "complex psychological and social relationships with one another," according to the gallery.

A figure's legs wearing yellow socks and white and beige Oxford shoes with red laces against a deep red background, with patterned wallpaper visible behind

Figure in white suit holding a cigarette, seated on a woven wooden box against a dark textured background

Woman in navy pinstriped blazer holding a sealed envelope, wearing red nail polish and a pink flower lapel pin

Headless figures are another familiar motif in Angela's work that resurfaces here. In doing so, even a person is reduced to an unknowable collection of objects such as a shirt, a bandage, and a smart pair of shoes.

Paired with everyday items deliberately deployed to act as signifiers and bursting with "ripe potential", these paintings provide glimpses into the identities of strangers by establishing relationships between people and objects.

"The jewellery, the clothing, the purses, and suitcases give me some insight into who I imagine the person to be," teases Burson. "They’re a window into a story about a person in passing."