Two of the artists which interested be at the Venice biennale last year were Maria Lassnig and Ellen Altfest
Maria Lassnig (who died in May this year in her nineties) was interested in depicting her body as she experienced it rather than as it appears. I have put reproductions of some of her work in my sketchbook (Sketchbook 4 page 29).
'You or Me' 2005 was a particularly arresting image dominating the space in which it was hung. It depicts and elderly woman with a sagging body and desperation in her pale eyes. she has a pistol pointed at her head and another at the viewer. The colour scheme uses acid and artificial-looking greens. The skin tones have an unhealthy yellowish greenish tinge to them all of which adds to the emotional tone of the painting. Lassnig described her work as " Pure realism, a little embellished and uglified".
Lassnig: Du Oder Ich - click to link to image
An example of this uglification can be seen in " the hospital" which depicts heads and bodies in hospital beds. An image of decrepitude ugliness and weakness.
Lassnig: The hospital - click link
Ellen Altfest
Has a different approach. She produces small scale studies of parts of the body. She especially concentrates on the less attractive features of male physiques. Her work is painstaking and tends towards photorealism. Each painting takes months to complete as she describes every minute detail of her subject. These are not portraits - they do not say anything about the people she paints. What I like about this is that she is impartial. She treats the parts of her human subjects which she depicts in the same way as she approaches still lives composed of inanimate objects. This means she has an unflinching and almost clinical approach to the depiction of armpits, penises and hairy backs.
For image click here
This image shows a foot as a component of a still life
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