Marlene Dumas

Jack Tilton Gallery, New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above in 2001

Exh. Cat., London, Barbican Art Gallery, Seduced: Art and Sex from Antiquity to Now, October 2007 - January 2008, p. 20, illustrated

This work is in very good condition overall. There is evidence of wear and handling to the edges and corners. There is a small 1/4 inch piece of paper that appears to have adhered to the upper left edge. There are no signs of restoration under UV light inspection. Unframed.
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Marlene Dumas’s All The Way is a seminal example of the artist’s ability to take sexual expression a step further. Explicit, erotic and confrontational, the commanding presence of the painting evokes an unnerving complicity in the viewer, a feeling often triggered by Dumas’s characteristically cutting edge work.  But beneath Dumas’ hard hitting social dialogue is a deep routed ideological equality. 

Dumas is frequently described as an “intellectual expressionist,” blurring the boundaries between painting and drawing. As seen in the present work, bold lines and shapes in the center of the canvas fuse seamlessly with ephemeral washes and thick gestural brushwork. The flesh pink tones against the cool blue background put the eye at ease amid this shockingly exposed and vulnerable subject matter.

Not only do these blue shades offer relief, but they also stray from the neutral palette Dumas often uses in the background of her canvases. Here, the assertion of sexuality captures the essence of intimacy and the work feels less vulgar than first meets the eye.

Akin to other provocative paintings by the artist, Dumas creates intimacy through alienation by simplifying and distorting her subjects. Yet unlike many of Dumas’s female nudes depicted from the same perspective, not only is the anonymity of the figure protected, but what is perhaps considered the most taboo part of the body is perfectly shielded by the geometric black bars that project across the canvas as they draw attention to the center of the figure. If Dumas takes on subjects that are considered taboo, it is because taboo itself is based on strict societal rules of division and prohibition that artists simply won’t acknowledge. As one of the most profoundly feminist contemporary artists, Dumas masters the use of painting to personally renegotiate the realms of conventional expectation.