ART CITIES:London-Marlene Dumas

Marlene Dumas is one of the most prominent painters working today. Her intense, psychologically charged works explore themes of sexuality, love, death and shame, often referencing art history, popular culture and current affairs – themes you can explore through related events.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo Tate Modern Archive

‘’The Image as Burden’’, is the title of the exhibition where the artist proves that secondhand Images can generate first-hand emotions. Dumas never paints directly from life, yet life in all its complexity is right there on the canvas. Her subjects are drawn from both public and personal references and include her daughter and herself, as well as recognisable faces such as: Amy Winehouse, Naomi Campbell, Princess Diana even Osama bin Laden. The results are often intimate and at times controversial, where politics become erotic and portraits become political. She plays with the imagination of her viewers, their preconceptions and fears. The title of the exhibition is taken from The Image as Burden 1993, a small painting depicting one figure carrying another. As with many of Dumas’s works, her choice of title deeply affects our interpretation of the work. It hints at the sense of responsibility faced by the artist in choosing to create an image that can translate ideas about painting and the position of the artist. For Dumas it is important to give more attention to what the painting does to the image, not only to what the image does to the painting. In an age dominated by the digital image and mass media, Dumas cherishes the physicality of the human touch with work that is a testament to the meaning and potency of painting. A survey of works by the South-African born artist gives reason to why she is perhaps the world’s most interesting figure painter.

Info: ‘’The Image as Burden’’, Tate Modern, Bankside London SE1 9T, London, Duration: 5/2-10/5/15, Days & Hours: Sun-The: 10:00-18:00, Fri-Sat: 10:00-22:00, www.tate.org.uk