After the many months of writing my dissertation I thought I deserved a treat, so I bought myself the Marlene Dumas book The Image as Burden. This was a few months ago before the accompanying exhibition at Tate Modern in London. It is an excellent book but I knew printed pictures on white pages could not compare to seeing the work up close.
After a trek around London first stop at Tate Modern was the café. I sat down at a table with my daughter when a man and woman walked in. The woman had a mass of blond messy hair. She wore two black scarves around her neck which were adorned with a large pink expensive looking brooch in a leaf shape. This lady definitely did not blend into the crowd. She looked around the café and caught my eye. I looked at my daughter and said ‘that really looks like Marlene Dumas’. I knew what she looked like as I had recently watched videos on Youtube of her talking about her work and demonstrating her painting technique. I quickly googled a picture of Dumas and asked my daughter her opinion. ‘It’s her’ my daughter said. Was it her? If I had gone and stood by this lady and listened to her accent (Dumas is South African) I would have known for sure. I like a mystery and if the lady hadn’t been Dumas I would have been a little disappointed, so let’s say the lady in the café at Tate Modern was Marlene Dumas. Perhaps she was taking a friend to have a personal tour of her exhibition or maybe she wanted to slip into the exhibition and secretly listen to what people were saying about her work.
Marlene Dumas. (2008) For Whom the Bell Tolls [oil on canvas]
Dumas is an artist who paints from photographs. She uses the familiarity of the face and turns it into something terrifying. Her portraits can be beautiful but it’s a strange unnerving beauty. She unmasks vulnerability, aggression, love and sexuality with fluent, translucent brush strokes. Duma says of her work ‘my people were all shot by a camera, framed, before I painted them. They didn’t know that I’d do this to them. They didn’t know by what names I’d call them…[…] My best works are erotic displays of mental confusions (with intrusions of irrelevant information). (Marlene Dumas, 1985, p.41).
Marlene Dumas. (1994 – ongoing) Rejects [ink, acrylic paint and chalk on paper] 60 x 50 cm each
The exhibition is filled with faces, sometimes on their own or in group portraits. She challenges the way we read expressions or meet a gaze. I became lost in studying the subjects in her ink drawings which are show as a group of portraits. I wondered why they have been grouped together, what was their story, their connection? The title she has given to this work is intriguing and is an indication of who I am looking at. Rejects – that title says so much. A set nine portraits are displayed as a group. These are a powerful set of ink drawings of faces. Some have been distorted by being scratched and cut to reveal an underneath layer. It’s troubling to think what these people have been through to look so mentally damaged.
Part of the fascination with Dumas’ work is you can interpret it in so many ways. She uses codes, visual clues and language are all equally important to her. Even the title of the show, The Image as Burden has multiple connotations. Dumas says of her work, ‘there is the image (source photography) you start with the image (the painted image) you end up with, and they are not the same. I want to give more attention to what the painting does to the image, not only to what the image does to the painting’ (Marlene Dumas, 2014, p.7).
Marlene Dumas. (1994) The Painter [oil on canvas] 200 cm x 100 cm
The Painter depicts a naked little girl with blood stained hands and a menacing stare. This haunting image is a mixture of horror and innocence. I couldn’t help but notice the expressive lines Dumas has made on the outline of the child’s face and body.
The Image as Burden is a large exhibition with Dumas’ work filling 14 rooms but well worth seeing if you are in London. She reveals and conceals the damage life has inflicted on these people portrayed in her work and this is a reason why her art has had such an impact on me as an artist.
