Marlene Dumas
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→ Mourning Marsyas (2024)
→ Open-End" (2022)
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→ Millennium Gallery, Sheffield, United Kingdom 24 October 2024 – 21 January 2025 Group exhibition
→ Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht and Kasteel Wijlre Estate, Wijlre, Netherlands 21 September 2024 – 4 May 2025 Group exhibition
→ Frith Street Gallery, London, United Kingdom 20 September 2024 – 16 November 2024 Solo exhibition
→ Singer Museum, Laren, Netherlands 18 September 2024 – 12 January 2025 Group exhibition
→ Holocaust Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands 11 March 2024 – ongoing Collection presentation
→ Stedelijk Museum Breda, Breda, Netherlands 13 May 2023 – ongoing Group exhibition
→ Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz, France 4 February 2023 – 27 January 2025 Group exhibition
→ Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands 1 July 2022 – 2024 Collection presentation
→ Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands 10 July 2021 – 2024 Collection presentation
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Marlene Dumas, born on August 3, 1953, in Cape Town, South Africa, is a prominent contemporary artist known for her provocative and emotionally charged portraits that explore complex themes of identity, sexuality, race, and death. She grew up in South Africa during apartheid, an experience that profoundly shaped her work and her views on social and political issues. Dumas attended the University of Cape Town, where she studied fine art before moving to the Netherlands in 1976 to study at the distinguished Atelier '63 in Haarlem. She eventually settled in Amsterdam, where she continues to live and work. Dumas is primarily known for her expressive, psychologically intense paintings, which often blur the line between figuration and abstraction. Her works are often based on found images, photographs, and media clippings, which she reinterprets to create haunting, ambiguous portrayals that invite viewers to question the nature of perception and representation. Her subjects are varied, ranging from celebrities and political figures to anonymous individuals, children, and even corpses. The themes of her work are also wide-ranging, encompassing issues of female representation, power dynamics, and the psychological complexity of human relationships. Her distinctive style, characterized by loose, gestural brushstrokes and muted, often somber color palettes, has gained her international acclaim. She often uses ink, watercolor, and oil paint on canvas or paper, with each medium allowing her to explore different textures and emotional depths. One of her most famous series, Models (1994), is a collection of portraits of female figures, which critiques conventional beauty standards and the objectification of women. Dumas’s work has been exhibited widely, with major solo shows at institutions such as the Tate Modern in London, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Her 2008 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, titled Measuring Your Own Grave, was particularly significant, cementing her reputation as one of the most important painters of her generation. In addition to her paintings, Dumas has created drawings and collages, and she has also written extensively on art, often reflecting on the intersections of art and social issues. Her work has been celebrated for its capacity to confront viewers with uncomfortable truths, urging them to reflect on the complexities of human experience and the fraught history of representation in art. Today, Marlene Dumas remains an influential figure in contemporary art, known for challenging and expanding the possibilities of portraiture and for her incisive explorations of difficult subjects that resonate on both personal and universal levels. Her work is included in numerous prestigious collections, and she continues to be an active and important voice in discussions around contemporary art, identity, and representation.