ART CITIES:London-Radical Figures:Painting in the New Millennium
While painting was considered to be last popular in the 1980’s, the exhibition “Radical Figures: Painting in the New Millennium” is set to reveal how there has been a renewed interest in expressive and experimental modes of figuration among painters who have come to prominence since 2000. Each of the artists in the exhibition explore contemporary subjects including gender and sexuality, society and politics, race and body image to push the notion of what figurative painting is.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Whitechapel Gallery Archive
Through 40 canvases created over the last two decades by 10 artists, the exhibition “Radical Figures: Painting in the New Millennium” surveys the renewed interest in expressive and experimental modes of figuration among painters who have come to prominence since 2000. The artists explore contemporary subjects including gender and sexuality, society and politics, race and body image. Pushing the notion of what figurative painting can be, the bodies they depict may be fragmented, morphed, merged and remade but never completely cohesive. They may also be fluid and non-gendered; drawn from news stories; represented by animals; or simply formed from the paint itself. Michael Armitage received his BA in Fine Art from the Slade School of Art, London (2007) and has a Postgraduate Diploma from the Royal Academy Schools, London (2010). His paintings have a dreamlike quality and his subjects are drawn from Kenyan and East African folklore, popular culture, online news and his own recollections. Armitage paints in oil on a traditional Ugandan bark cloth called Lubugo. Its course texture shows through the paint, which is meticulously layered. Cecily Brown received a BA in Fine Art from the Slade School of Art, London (1993). In her large-scale paintings, figures engaged in lively physical activity are often indistinguishable within pastoral or bucolic settings. While inspired by the compositions of historic male painters such as Eugene Delacroix and the expressionist technique of Willem de Kooning, she presents a female-centred view of her subjects with sources ranging from pornography to High Renaissance painting. Nicole Eisenman received a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design, Providence (1987). Eisenman uses allegory and satire to engage not only with contemporary social subjects, from gender and sexuality to wealth and power but also the tropes of Western figurative painting traditions. Her cartoon-like figures explore human emotions or consider the role of the artist. Sanya Kantarovsky studied painting at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, RI (2004) and received his MFA at the University of California, Los Angeles (2011). His references include early 20th century European and Russian figurative artists Matisse, Gauguin and Chagall alongside children’s book illustrations and comic book imagery. His paintings depict lean and ungainly figures in darkly humorous, satirical or melancholic narratives often suggesting male humiliation and discomfort. Tala Madani received her MFA from Yale University School of Art (2006). Her psychologically charged works often include bald, middle-aged men engaged in crude, sexual or slapstick activities. In recent works, the body becomes a medium for exploring experiences around artistic identity and motherhood through a feminist lens. She combines tactile and expressive brushwork with more precise techniques derived from animation. Ryan Mosley trained at the University of Huddersfield and Royal College of Art, London (2007). He assembles characters in performative narratives with a carnivalesque element. Motifs such as top hats, beards or foliage derived from sources as diverse as the paintings of René Magritte or the visual clichés of Hollywood Westerns give his paintings a timeless theatrical quality. Christina Quarles received an MFA from the Yale School of Art in 2016, and holds a BA from Hampshire College. Her vibrantly coloured paintings feature entwined bodies in twisted or distended poses within abstracted environments and are often barely contained by the canvas. Quarles explores female, black and queer identity through the active agency of these bodies who demand direct engagement rather than passive consumption. Daniel Richter attended Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg (1991–96) and worked as an assistant to Albert Oehlen. Since the early 2000s he has produced large-scale oil paintings that bring together contemporary mass-media images with closely-observed figurative scenes. Shifting styles and subjects, he often creates work in dialogue with 19th and 20th century painters like James Ensor and Edvard Munch. Dana Schutz received a BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art (2000) and an MFA from Columbia University, New York (2002). Her paintings regularly feature grotesque single or grouped figures engaged in absurd, humorous and sometimes abject activities. Often working with thick impasto, Schutz describes her interest in painting as a medium in which the “hierarchies of the world can be rearranged”. Tschabalala Self received an MFA from Yale School of Art in 2015. Self depicts female black figures in an exaggerated and bold style using a combination of sewn, printed, and painted textures. Her work aims to navigate the iconographic and sexualized representation of the Black female and male body in contemporary culture
Participating Artists: Michael Armitage, Cecily Brown, Nicole Eisenman, Sanya Kantarovsky, Tala Madani, Ryan Mosley, Christina Quarles, Daniel Richter, Dana Schutz and Tschabalala Self.
Info: Curator: Lydia Yee, Assistant Curators: Cameron Foote and Candy Stobbs, Whitechapel Gallery, 77-82 Whitechapel High Street, London, Duration 6/2-10/5/20, Days & Hours: Tue-Wed 11:00-18:00, Thu 11:00-21:00, www.whitechapelgallery.org
