April 3, 2025
Lisa Yuskavage
David Zwirner Los Angeles
February 18 - April 12, 2025
Lisa Yuskavage
Naked women, the artist's studio, lurid colors, dynamic and thoughtful compositions: these elements are often associated with Lisa Yuskavage's paintings. Whether small or large, Yuskavage packs each work with quirky, personal narratives that intermingle the subject of artist and muse, in addition to exaggerated representations of female sexuality. The artist is present in her recent compositions, standing at an easel, sometimes wearing a white lab coat with a paintbrush in hand or seen in relation to scantily clad models who taunt or tease the viewer.
In Yuskavage's paintings, the studio becomes a stage onto which scenarios are projected. In the monumental work The Artist's Studio (2022), also reproduced on a giant billboard adjacent to the facade of the gallery, a cherub-faced half nude girl stares out of the painting. She is dressed in a revealing, tight fitting but also draped pink t-shirt that covers the upper portion of her body, yet her pubic hair. She also wears colorful striped knee high socks exposing her bare thighs. She holds a bright green painter's palette curiously suggesting she is both artist and model. Behind her is a large painting depicting a landscape filled with green hills and a few orange clouds, as well as a single female figure —a peasant from the earlier work Nel'zah's (2012)— offering a green plate. Toward the back of the studio, a woman (also the artist?) sits at a table reading a book. Miscellaneous ladders, props and unfinished paintings are scattered in the space, all with tan, light brown or gray hues, in contrast to the more finished and vivid depiction of the figure in the landscape.
From the Renaissance to modern times, numerous male painters have created self portraits at work in the studio. Included in this group are Vermeer, Velasquez, Picasso, Matisse and even the video artist Paul McCarthy. In some ways, Yuskavage follows in this tradition, inserting herself and prior artworks into her recent paintings, yet with Yuskavage there is often an ironic challenge or provocation. Painter Painting (2024) is a large-scale oil with the artist at its center, her back to the viewer. She is in the midst of creating a grayish portrait of a doll-like woman with huge breasts. The painting within the painting dwarfs the depiction of the artist whose head is in the middle of the subject's cleavage. Two sketches/studies of nudes are adhered with blue tape to the painting in progress. A small sculptural maquette for the naked woman in the painting is placed on a stool nearby. With older works surrounding her, it is as if Yuskvage is mining her past for inspiration.
The artist at work is absent in In the Company of Models (2024). While the studio setting is similar to the one in Painter Painting, Yuskavage does not appear as a painter, but rather a younger version of herself is presented as a model who emerges from a bright green wall in a like-colored dress. Though legless, her body position suggests the beginning of a formal dance. The central figure — a seductive female nude wearing nothing but beaded panties— is surrounded by stacked depictions of Yuskavage's past paintings, like the bright yellow Rorschach Blot (1995).
This exhibition, Yuskavage's first solo show in Los Angeles in 30 years, includes both large-scale and smaller paintings. Seen in relation to each other, the works have informative overlaps that illustrate her process, passions and history. This is an audacious move. Yuskavage recontextualizes old works by placing them in a studio setting — as if to say this is where I began and this is where I am now and I am happy to take you on a journey from then to now and show you what a magnificent painter I have turned out to be. Yuskavage has a unique way of celebrating both the vulnerability, as well as of the stoicism of the artist's model and a knack for portraying the complexities of the artist herself at work.
David Zwirner Los Angeles
February 18 - April 12, 2025
Lisa Yuskavage
Naked women, the artist's studio, lurid colors, dynamic and thoughtful compositions: these elements are often associated with Lisa Yuskavage's paintings. Whether small or large, Yuskavage packs each work with quirky, personal narratives that intermingle the subject of artist and muse, in addition to exaggerated representations of female sexuality. The artist is present in her recent compositions, standing at an easel, sometimes wearing a white lab coat with a paintbrush in hand or seen in relation to scantily clad models who taunt or tease the viewer.
In Yuskavage's paintings, the studio becomes a stage onto which scenarios are projected. In the monumental work The Artist's Studio (2022), also reproduced on a giant billboard adjacent to the facade of the gallery, a cherub-faced half nude girl stares out of the painting. She is dressed in a revealing, tight fitting but also draped pink t-shirt that covers the upper portion of her body, yet her pubic hair. She also wears colorful striped knee high socks exposing her bare thighs. She holds a bright green painter's palette curiously suggesting she is both artist and model. Behind her is a large painting depicting a landscape filled with green hills and a few orange clouds, as well as a single female figure —a peasant from the earlier work Nel'zah's (2012)— offering a green plate. Toward the back of the studio, a woman (also the artist?) sits at a table reading a book. Miscellaneous ladders, props and unfinished paintings are scattered in the space, all with tan, light brown or gray hues, in contrast to the more finished and vivid depiction of the figure in the landscape.
From the Renaissance to modern times, numerous male painters have created self portraits at work in the studio. Included in this group are Vermeer, Velasquez, Picasso, Matisse and even the video artist Paul McCarthy. In some ways, Yuskavage follows in this tradition, inserting herself and prior artworks into her recent paintings, yet with Yuskavage there is often an ironic challenge or provocation. Painter Painting (2024) is a large-scale oil with the artist at its center, her back to the viewer. She is in the midst of creating a grayish portrait of a doll-like woman with huge breasts. The painting within the painting dwarfs the depiction of the artist whose head is in the middle of the subject's cleavage. Two sketches/studies of nudes are adhered with blue tape to the painting in progress. A small sculptural maquette for the naked woman in the painting is placed on a stool nearby. With older works surrounding her, it is as if Yuskvage is mining her past for inspiration.
The artist at work is absent in In the Company of Models (2024). While the studio setting is similar to the one in Painter Painting, Yuskavage does not appear as a painter, but rather a younger version of herself is presented as a model who emerges from a bright green wall in a like-colored dress. Though legless, her body position suggests the beginning of a formal dance. The central figure — a seductive female nude wearing nothing but beaded panties— is surrounded by stacked depictions of Yuskavage's past paintings, like the bright yellow Rorschach Blot (1995).
This exhibition, Yuskavage's first solo show in Los Angeles in 30 years, includes both large-scale and smaller paintings. Seen in relation to each other, the works have informative overlaps that illustrate her process, passions and history. This is an audacious move. Yuskavage recontextualizes old works by placing them in a studio setting — as if to say this is where I began and this is where I am now and I am happy to take you on a journey from then to now and show you what a magnificent painter I have turned out to be. Yuskavage has a unique way of celebrating both the vulnerability, as well as of the stoicism of the artist's model and a knack for portraying the complexities of the artist herself at work.