Marlene Dumas “The White Disease” 1985
Introduction
I-Description
Marlene Dumas is a celebrated contemporary artist whose paintings are admired for the emotional charged portrayal of human figure plus its combination of humor, drama, and sexuality (Bonacossa 5). Marlene was born in South Africa in 1953, but her life and work is in Amsterdam. Marlene is considered an influential contemporary artist who seeks to define what is woman, without the male genre used by expressionist art (Bonacossa 5).
“The White Disease” is the representation of Marlene’s style of painting known as the figurative painting. This style drives the artist to select expressive medium like paint to reflect the complex and articulated images of race and ethnicity in the 1980s. This style drives the artist to create a painting that uses visual complexity to represent the human brutality of apartheid. Figurative painting is a style has its roots in the post-war period, where it creates a strong connection between the ideas of the past (Mullins 17). Figurative painting emerged as the result of the rise of the era of abstraction and modernity, when traditional pictorial representations ended (Mullins 17).
The piece of painting under review is Marlene’s 1985 “The White Disease” that is a 130.5 by 110.5 cm painting. The painting is a representation of the artist’s nature of oeuvre, a monogram that uses watercolors. The artwork represents the major theme of ethnic and racial intolerance, and uses the artist’s main form, the human body. The nature of the painting it representational, as Marlene uses the human body to represent the politics and daily life of the apartheid events in South Africa.
Media
The painting’s media is oil on canvas. Marlene chooses the medium to represent the dreadful nature of humanity and the horrors of apartheid. In this painting, the colors mostly depict human flesh.
Marlene uses the medium process similar to Karel van Mander’s. In this process, the artist first observes the body for condition and variations of skin color. For Marlene, her observation uses carefully photographed image. After observation, the artist then selected the relevant pigments based on discoloration and material properties (Hasegawa 154). Marlene selected canvas and oil colors that were had shadings, heightening, several hues, and manipulation to depict her theme. Marlene uses the basic colors of red, lead-white, and ochre mixtures to create the portrait (Lehmann 93).
Looking at the media in “The White Disease” it is evident that Marlene uses historical allusions to create the elements of the sick white-skin color. The result of the media process is that the painting represents the title through a gaze, eyes, and skin (Bedford 36). The eyes in the painting are small, not strikingly alive, but appear like holograms or ghostly apparitions that have a far-way look. In the painting, Marlene uses a ghostly shade of white that eludes illness, with shades of pink of the nose indicating the disease is from the inside. The painting uses transparent and translucent paint, with the white skin stained with little sports of darker colors to indicate the illness in the women (Bedford 36). Marlene then distorts the face of the women to render her age uncertain. The artist creates a portrait with a lose contour to imply a fading facial expression, which is an indication of loss (Bedford 36). The forehead of the woman almost disappears into her hair, with barely noticeable eyebrows, a nose represented by a reddish spot. Marlene simply is using color to indicate the loss of humanity and the absorption into oneself by the apartheid white race.
II- Analysis
- Visual Elements and Principles of Design
Marlene uses the portrait of a woman’s distorted face and pale skin to create a visual image of politics and life in apartheid South Africa. The artists intertwines three main visual elements of content in which, Marlene uses a pale face of a human being on a dark background to create a negative image representing the negative consequences of apartheid (Hasegawa 154). The strokes of her brush create oblique lines that give texture and lifeless action to the pale face. The texture of the painting appears to be rough. Marlene uses the element of size by placing the human form on three quarters of the surface area of the canvas, thereby drawing attention to the white face (Alphen 67). The last visual element is value, in which Marlene uses very light tones of color white to create the ghostly white face.
The principle of design in the painting is balance, where Marlene places the large white bust of a white woman at the center of the canvas. The artist then uses very light tones or hues of lead-white on a dark background to create the balance. Therefore, the light tones indicate the white person set upon a very dark background create balance in the painting.
- Methods of Representation
The artists used representational method to create an image of a white pale woman. This is representational art since the figure is recognizable as a white woman. Moreover, since the image in the art is a portrait of a woman the painting falls under the representational art style. Marlene also used the method of “figure painting” or “figurative painting,” with contemporary aspects, where she places some focus on the realism of human form (Alphen 68). Thirdly, Marlene also uses the method of portraiture by creating a mask or ghost like portrait.
III- Interpretation
The main theme of the painting is the issue of ethnic and racial intolerance to the apartheid regime in South Africa in the 1980s (Baudrillard 107). This theme is created by the use of the artist’s form, the body of a human being, and the medium of paint. The artists uses very white paint to show the whiteness of racial and ethnic intolerance to apartheid by fellow whites (Alphen 67). By deforming the face, the artist shares her experience with racial politics in South Africa and the evils of ethnic intolerance of whites to others (Baudrillard 107). This theme is applicable, given the setting of the painting. Marlene painted “The White Disease” in 1985, which was the height of racial and ethnic segregation in South Africa.
IV- Judgment
I believe by making the face distorted, spotted with red patches, and very pale, Marlene is explaining that there are whites who do not want to be associate with racist and ethnic white. The painting is significant since it contributes to contemporary art that draws from figurative painting and portraiture. The painting does contribute to the body of contemporary art as it addresses the timeless theme of race and ethnicity.
V- Conclusion
In conclusion, it is evident that “White Disease” is representational or figurative art that speaks of the ills of racism, which is a white man’s ethnic intolerance to others. Marlene Dumas in creating this work of art uses visual elements and the balance principle of design.
Works Cited
Alphen, Ernst van. “Facing Defacement. “Models” and Marlene Dumas‟ intervention in Western Art”, in Marlene Dumas, Silvia Eiblmayr, (eds.), Marlene Dumas: Models, Exhibition Catalogue, Salzburg, Salzburger Kunstverein , 1995, pp. 67-75.
Baudrillard, Jean. The Transparency of Evil. Essays on Extreme Phenomena, London, Verso, 2003, p. 107
Bedford, Emma. “Questions of Intimacy and Relations”, in Marlene Dumas, Emma Bedford (eds.), Intimate Relations, Amsterdam, Roma Publications, Jacana Media, Johannesburg, 2007.
Bonacossa, Ilaria. “Marlene Dumas” in Francesco Bonami (ed.), Marlene Dumas, Milan, Electa, 2006.
Hasegawa, Yuko. “Interview with Marlene Dumas”, in Marlene Dumas: Broken White, Tokyo, Tankosha, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, 2008, p. 154.
Lehmann, Ann-Sophie. “Fleshing out the body”, in Body and Embodiment in Netherlandish art, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek, Zwolle, Waanders, 2008.
Mullins, Charlotte. Painting People figure painting today, New York, D.A.P., 2006.
