Marlene Dumas

Marlene Dumas

 

            Marlene Dumas is a painter who places a lot of focus on the human figure.  She has worked with collages, drawings, installations, and prints as well as painting.  However, she has recently been devoting more time to oil paintings and ink drawings.  Dumas works from photo references, such as pictures she has taken, and images taken from magazines.  Although she works using a photo reference, her final piece does not translate the exact same image.  During the painting or drawing process, she will crop images, change the size or shape of information, or even change the colors.  Marlene Dumas’s artworks carry themes of identity, as well as racism and sexuality.

            I was unfamiliar with Marlene Dumas, but I enjoyed researching some of her work.  I also liked her artistic process.  I was inspired by the fact that even though Marlene Dumas works from photographs, her paintings can turn out looking completely different than the source photo.  Also, it is interesting how the identities of her subjects are stripped away, leaving behind an opportunity for the viewer to form their own opinions.  This is evident with her portrait of Osama bin Laden, because she has taken a person who has been represented in a negative way in the media, and then has given him a new identity in her painting.  I am also interested in her philosophy about the human body and how valuable it is.