Here she is!
Marlene Dumas
"My best works are erotic displays of mental confusions (with intrusions of irrelevant information)`"
'Marlene Dumas makes paintings with no concept of the taboo. Racism, sexuality, religion, motherhood and childhood are all presented with chilling honesty. Undermining universally held belief systems, Dumas corrupts the very way images are negotiated. Stripped of the niceties of moral consolation, Marlene Dumas's work provokes unmitigated horror. She offers no comfort to the viewer, only an unnerving complicity and confusion between victims and oppressors.
Often described as an 'intellectual expressionist', Marlene Dumas blurs the boundaries between painting and drawing. Bold lines and shapes mix seamlessly with ephemeral washes and thick gestural brushwork. By simplifying and distorting her subjects, Marlene Dumas creates intimacy through alienation. Her subjects' assertive stares suggest that her paintings aren't actually about them, but the viewer's own reaction to their perverse circumstance. With deceptive casualness, Marlene Dumas exposes the monstrous capacity belied by 'civilised' human nature. '
Patricia Ellis
I decided to read a few articles, and took out the important bits! I thought then a good place to start was to begin looking at her work.
The Cover up
This is proof that it's not what she actually paints that is so disturbing, it's the way it makes you feel. This is a way of showing a corruption of innocence, the clothes over the child's head gives an almost eerie feel, a sort of darkness - you just know what she's saying. I love this style of confrontation. It's obvious, it's blatant and no one can say it's explicit.... can they?
I decided to have a look at her website - well it was a website set up for her, she doesn't actually post anything onto it, so there was a lot of information about her work on there. I was however drawn to it, there's a stark realism about it that's so sinister. She does a lot of portraits - but none of them are happy. She has a very distinctive style about her work, it's very watery.
Models
This is a series of paintings called Models, it is here you can see the watery style, they almost blur into one another. It's the facial expressions that get me, I listened to her speak about this, the people are people she's drawn to/attracted, her friends, mentally ill and people you don't traditionally work with in the art and design industry. I love the idea of compiling a range of picture's of either different things/people that make up another person, but look in less traditional places for a starting point.
Glass Tears (for Man Ray)
This could be called an imitation of Man Ray's original photograph, however Dumas wants people to view it as a compilation of gesture's. She created the background, but applying water to the canvas in a certain way because she was looking at different ways to express tears.
Dumas appears to look a lot at young women, in an almost sexual way quite a lot.
I really like most of the images, here's a few.
Leather boots
This to me is almost photographic, it's almost like she's refined her gestural brusk strokes, and I think it works really really well.
Suspect
This makes me feel like I'm looking at something that I really shouldn't be, another thing to notice is the colour of the skin, it's kind of grey and blue - dead looking.
Satin gloves
Silk Stockings
Candle Light
The above paintings are almost kind of fetish led, I'm quite interested in things that are slightly sexual, I have no idea why, her works quite taboo as well, that probably why I've decided that I really like her.
There's something definitely dark and dirty about Dumas' work and I'm not quite sure what it is, I just know I like it. It's almost like social realism, but of a different kind. I like it - it's ballsy, it shows things that are often swept under that carpet. I have definitely taken a lot of from looking at Dumas' work, and hopefully it'll come out in my work.
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