the gestures of Expressionism
Recalling the gestures of Expressionism while combining it with Conceptual art and eroticism, Marlene Dumas stays true to her constant themes of art, female beauty and the erotic, all in relation to one another.
By Hend Seif El Din
Working from both real-life models, as well as from photography, she prefers working from the latter, thus distancing herself from her subjects, which avoids her painting with sympathy for one or the other. Born and raised in South Africa–currently based in the Netherlands–Dumas paints figurative images, somewhat reminiscent of some of Edvard Munch’s paintings.
Notably, spectators will often notice that while her work “says” so much, there is actually very little of it on the canvas. She forms her subjects in a rather “simple” way, yet retaining all of the necessary details and expressions…making her paintings “speak.”
Her work is somewhat dark, brooding and yet full of emotions; one cannot help but look once, twice and a million more times. Something about her work draws us in. Whether it’s the simplicity of her lines, the complexity of her
subjects or the perfection by which she applies her brush strokes–which in some cases seem chaotic but actually aren’t at all–I do not know for sure. But then again, in her own words, “art does not speak unless it is spoken to.”
