Paintings of women undressing almost always have a creepy, hungry-eyed horniness to them. Thanks every male painter in art history. But Lisa Brice’s bright blue works on paper of women in private moments ditch the thigh-rubbing grubbiness of the male gaze for a powerful, confident vision of female empowerment.
The blue colour gives the works a whiff of 1940s fashion illustration, maybe even a hint of Matisse’s use of the colour. The women here are getting changed in a shop, glancing at themselves in the mirror, smoking in a towel, dancing, drinking. This is not the female body as an object of desire, but as a thing in its own right, as a symbol purely of itself. They’re simple paintings, but imbued with just enough ‘up yours’ attitude to carry it all off.
@eddyfrankel
