Text by Christopher Bedford, Helen Molesworth, Heidi Zuckerman. Interview by Mary Weatherford.
A new focus on the sublime landscapes in Lisa Yuskavage’s voluptuous figure paintings
Though she is arguably best known for the voluptuous female nudes that populate her paintings, Lisa Yuskavage’s work is just as focused on the ethereal settings in which these subjects appear. Yuskavage creates finely detailed landscapes that blur the line between the fantastical and the familiar, melding abstraction with realism to depict self-contained worlds. These outdoor scenes defy conventions of landscape painting with surreal color palettes of lush greens and delicate pinks, cast in a gauzy light quality that highlights the almost magical nature of her paintings.
Published in conjunction with a joint exhibition between the Aspen Art Museum in Colorado and the Baltimore Museum of Art in Maryland, this volume includes color reproductions of Yuskavage’s paintings and watercolors from the early 1990s to the present, as well as an interview between Yuskavage and fellow artist Mary Weatherford.Based in New York City, American artist Lisa Yuskavage (born 1962) received her MFA from the Yale School of Art in 1986. In the years since, her signature style of figure painting has developed something of a cult following for its attention to art historical tradition and a decidedly contemporary, pop culture-based approach to the representation of the female form. Her work has been in solo exhibitions around the world. Yuskavage is represented by David Zwirner.
Featured image is reproduced from 'Lisa Yuskavage: Wilderness.'
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Document Journal
Ann Binlot
For over three decades, Yuskavage’s magical, provocative paintings of nude women (and to a lesser extent, men) have raised the eyebrows of the more conservative ilk for their perceived carnality [...] Make no mistake—Yuskavage isn’t trying to portray these women as particularly sexual, she’s simply allowing the women in her paintings to just “be”.
Hypebeast
Keith Estiler
[W]idely recognized for her distinct use of color and form to subvert pictorial depictions, establishing a world of her own with its own myths and fantastical conventions [...] the boundary-pushing painter...introduc[ed] her sexualized female subjects across pictorial paintings.
Surface
Ryan Waddoups
Lisa Yuskavage is perhaps best known for her paintings of voluptuous sexualized female figures in romantic, dramatically lit environments [...] Yuskavage ascribes an otherworldly transcendence to her portraits, eschewing pictorial conventions to lend a sense of seductivity to the everyday.
New York Times: Style
Julia Felsenthal
Yuskavage, a masterful colorist, makes lush, luminous, intentionally — and delightfully — gauche paintings that unsettle facile notions of misogyny, femininity and the female gaze.
Aspen Times
Andrew Travers
...[P]ay attention to what Yuskavage has been doing in the background. There, you’ll find groundbreaking landscapes ranging from the romantic to the apocalyptic. It’s a journey from Eden to hell and back.
Aspen Daily News
Augustina Mistretta
Having developed a strong visual identity linked to exploring female anatomy, Yuskavage’s paintings leave little room for feelings of indifference. They are challenging and uncomfortably explicit, yet there is a mysterious aura that captures the viewer. Voluptuous female figures with impossibly huge breasts, perfect peach skin and child-like complexion play around immersed in idyllic landscapes.
Midwest Book Review
James Cox
Yuskavage creates finely detailed landscapes that blur the line between the fantastical and the familiar, melding abstraction with realism to depict self-contained worlds. These outdoor scenes defy conventions of landscape painting with surreal color palettes of lush greens and delicate pinks, cast in a gauzy light quality that highlights the almost magical nature of her paintings.
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Beach Fire (2012) is reproduced from Lisa Yuskavage: Wilderness, published by Gregory R. Miller & Co. to accompany the exhibition currently on view in Baltimore en route from the Aspen Museum of Art. But why organize a show of landscapes by an artist known for her paintings of female bodies in extremely vulnerable (or available) positions, former Aspen Art Museum Director Heidi Zuckerman asks. Yuskavage's response: "The figures in my works are the actors, and when I pull the camera way, way back, I can see what else is happening.… All of a sudden, there are sunsets, sunrises, mountains, farmlands, and farmers. I was just playing all these things out and letting them run amok. The landscape was more about the inclusion of other things; it was opening up the frame." So while this beautifully produced volume does include conventional landscape paintings, there are also works in which, in Zuckerman's words, "the body itself becomes a landscape, where breasts look like mountains and nether regions like haystacks, and we can speak of Monet or Courbet references." continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 11 x 10 in. / 160 pgs / 53 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $55.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $77 GBP £50.00 ISBN: 9781941366271 PUBLISHER: Gregory R. Miller & Co. AVAILABLE: 9/8/2020 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: WORLD
Published by Gregory R. Miller & Co.. Text by Christopher Bedford, Helen Molesworth, Heidi Zuckerman. Interview by Mary Weatherford.
A new focus on the sublime landscapes in Lisa Yuskavage’s voluptuous figure paintings
Though she is arguably best known for the voluptuous female nudes that populate her paintings, Lisa Yuskavage’s work is just as focused on the ethereal settings in which these subjects appear. Yuskavage creates finely detailed landscapes that blur the line between the fantastical and the familiar, melding abstraction with realism to depict self-contained worlds. These outdoor scenes defy conventions of landscape painting with surreal color palettes of lush greens and delicate pinks, cast in a gauzy light quality that highlights the almost magical nature of her paintings.
Published in conjunction with a joint exhibition between the Aspen Art Museum in Colorado and the Baltimore Museum of Art in Maryland, this volume includes color reproductions of Yuskavage’s paintings and watercolors from the early 1990s to the present, as well as an interview between Yuskavage and fellow artist Mary Weatherford.Based in New York City, American artist Lisa Yuskavage (born 1962) received her MFA from the Yale School of Art in 1986. In the years since, her signature style of figure painting has developed something of a cult following for its attention to art historical tradition and a decidedly contemporary, pop culture-based approach to the representation of the female form. Her work has been in solo exhibitions around the world. Yuskavage is represented by David Zwirner.
