Katherine Sherwood
Maja, 2014
75” x 80”
Mixed media on found linen
Part of the Venuses of the Yelling Clinic series
Website: http://www.katherinesherwood.com/
California, USA
Image by Katherine Sherwood
VO by Mari Weiss
75” x 80”
Mixed media on found linen
Part of the Venuses of the Yelling Clinic series
Website: http://www.katherinesherwood.com/
California, USA
Image by Katherine Sherwood
VO by Mari Weiss
ARTIST STATEMENT:
I have been working on a new series of large-scale paintings featuring disabled reclining female nudes that reference medical imagery and disability. I am calling this series Venuses of the Yelling Clinic as I have appropriated art-historical images of the female nude in order to challenge canonical ideals of beauty.
These Venuses are painted on the linen backs of Art History reproductions made in 1950-60s that are tiled together with linen strips glued to the front side to create a large quilted linen painting surface. The images on the reproduction prints are canonical, primarily Western paintings and drawings that were used as educational tools in the Art Practice and Art History classes. They are reinforced on the reverse with linen backing so that they would be more durable. The linen backs are quite beautiful; they have handwritten labels with the artists’ names and catalogue numbers and they are worn, a bit yellowed, and show evidence of repeated use.
After Manet’s Olympia I painted Goya’s Maja with a cane similar to my own, Giorgione's Sleeping Venus as an amputee and Ingres’ Odalisque with a prosthetic arm. All Venuses of the Yelling Clinic are larger than life size, and once hung, they demand attention and dominate the space.
-Katherine Sherwood
These Venuses are painted on the linen backs of Art History reproductions made in 1950-60s that are tiled together with linen strips glued to the front side to create a large quilted linen painting surface. The images on the reproduction prints are canonical, primarily Western paintings and drawings that were used as educational tools in the Art Practice and Art History classes. They are reinforced on the reverse with linen backing so that they would be more durable. The linen backs are quite beautiful; they have handwritten labels with the artists’ names and catalogue numbers and they are worn, a bit yellowed, and show evidence of repeated use.
After Manet’s Olympia I painted Goya’s Maja with a cane similar to my own, Giorgione's Sleeping Venus as an amputee and Ingres’ Odalisque with a prosthetic arm. All Venuses of the Yelling Clinic are larger than life size, and once hung, they demand attention and dominate the space.
-Katherine Sherwood
DESCRIPTION:
Maja is based on Francisco Goya’s The Naked Maja, a famous painting of a reclining nude woman.
In this double bed sized work, Sherwood’s Maja has chocolate brown skin. She reclines with both hands behind her head, her feet on the left. Her full breasts have white nipples. Her belly button is white. She wears a floral crown and in place of her face is an MRI image of the brain, eye sockets and facial bones in gold and brown. Lying beside her left leg is an orange cane with black tip. She rests on a diamond pattern in gray. The diamonds have yellow centers trimmed in white. The white background above her has faint lines recreating a rectangular grid. The rectangles are labeled with artist names in addition to numbers and letters: P. della Francesca; Durer; Titian; Monet; Toulouse Lautrec.
-audio description by Teri Grossman
In this double bed sized work, Sherwood’s Maja has chocolate brown skin. She reclines with both hands behind her head, her feet on the left. Her full breasts have white nipples. Her belly button is white. She wears a floral crown and in place of her face is an MRI image of the brain, eye sockets and facial bones in gold and brown. Lying beside her left leg is an orange cane with black tip. She rests on a diamond pattern in gray. The diamonds have yellow centers trimmed in white. The white background above her has faint lines recreating a rectangular grid. The rectangles are labeled with artist names in addition to numbers and letters: P. della Francesca; Durer; Titian; Monet; Toulouse Lautrec.
-audio description by Teri Grossman
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