Work group II · 15 works
Faces & Stories
Images of women from different cultures and visual worlds, plus masks, letters and memory: the face as a place of belonging and feeling.
Views of the World
Masks & Inner Worlds
Curatorial Perspective
I
Description
Images of women from different cultures and visual worlds: African portraits with headwear and pattern, geishas and Japanese scenes with ornament, fish and birds, a group of women in traditional headdresses. Alongside them are cubist-style fractured faces, a dreaming close-up and narrative oil portraits featuring a clown figure, hand puppets or a New York skyline.
II
Idea
The group has two chapters. The world portraits show women with dignity, ornament and community, never as folklore, but as individual faces with a gaze of their own. Masks & Inner Worlds turns inward: tears, letters, waiting, memory. Both chapters are linked by the face as a place of belonging and feeling.
III
Context
The Japanese motifs stand in the tradition of Japonisme and its delight in ornament. The fractured faces of Life and Masks recall the cubist dissection of the portrait and Fauvism. The oil paintings around The Love Letter pick up the letter picture of European painting and symbolist theater scenes.
IV
What sets it apart
Life and Masks 1 and 2 (each 40 × 40 cm) can be shown and acquired as a diptych. Pattern carries meaning in this group: kimono, headwear and tattoo are part of the figure, not decoration. The range from 40 × 40 to 100 × 100 cm makes the group flexible to hang.
V
For collectors & spaces
Suited to living rooms, practices, libraries, hotels and international settings. The world portraits appeal to collectors who link art with travel and cultural exchange. The quieter inner worlds suit rooms where people linger.