Marlene Dumas

Marlene Dumas portrays a woman on her back, with her hands at her bare breasts. The writing at the top begins with “White lies” and goes on to discuss psychological turmoil and deceit. This text could suggest multiple readings, including an inner monologue about a personal relationship or a reference to the history of apartheid in South Africa, where Dumas grew up. Her work, she says, “suggests all sorts of narratives, but it doesn’t really tell you what’s going on at all. . . . I think the work invites you to have a conversation with it.”

–Jan Howard, Houghton P. Metcalf Jr. Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs

Marlene Dumas creates visual narratives from her personal archive of newspaper and magazine clippings and photographs of family and friends. In her transformation of this source material, the identities of her subjects become anonymous and open to new meanings.

Here a woman lies on her back; the viewer’s interpretation is guided by the inscription at the top of the sheet, which alludes to psychological turmoil and deceit. “White lies” typically connotes a harmless lie, but in the context of Dumas’s work, it may refer to race. Hovering above the woman, the text suggests an inner monologue, providing an example of the way the artist often blends the personal and the political.

Rather than working from life, Marlene Dumas finds her models within a large personal archive of photographs, newspaper and magazine clippings, and Polaroid images of family and friends. Cropping and distortion often hide the nature of these sources and the individuality of the figures portrayed, as in this image of a young woman lying on her side. Dumas has described her paintings as removing the constructed and artificial visual elements within her source images, thereby unlocking a concealed narrative. Here, the title White Lies and the text at the top of the page hint at psychic turmoil and sexual and racial violence, common themes within her work.