Marlene Dumas (b. 1953)

'In Marlene Dumas' thinking as an artist, form, content and medium are interlinked terms. She activates the water-colours - water and colour in their 'union' - as a substance that is congruent in both form and content and that in its painterly-graphical structuring seeks a union with human elements of expression in the physiognomy of the painting. It is Dumas' trenchant sensuality, the eroticism of the water-colour - in the application of the paint, its characteristic style, its contouring - which directly transforms body language into metaphysical language. The 'eternal triangle' of form - content - medium has a middle. The centre is the reflection of self in the other - the personal and metaphysical alter ego, which is echoed in artistic expression. These substantial, personally charged water-colours correspond with an extremely differentiated, committed, 'quick-witted' written language, which Marlene Dumas ties into her thinking as an artist.' (T. Osterold, 'Water-colours as Physiognomies', in Marlene Dumas Wet Dreams: Watercolours, exh. cat., Ravensburg, Städtische Galerie Ravensburg 2003, p. 20.)