Geneva, Centre d’Art Contemporain, Lisa Yuskavage, 2001
Catalogue Essay
Yuskavage has an exquisite ability to capture the vulnerability of the female form in the quietest of moments and provides a glimpse into the private lives of her subjects, naked and meditative. She strikes a delicate balance exploring the sumptuous side of fecundity as well as the more provocative element of self-exploration. The delicious colors, folded skin, soft lighting, and lush fabrics cloaking her subjects only add to a sense of immediacy, of voyeurism as the viewer uninvited. Yuskavage’s approach to painting the female form is without pretense and instead distorts clichés of romanticism and more exploitive renditions of women. Her subjects are vulgar and voluptuous, subtle and restrained, fantastical and realistic—the artist dispels the Madonnawhore complex by creating women who are everything in between.