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Artworks
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Joan Semmel, A Balancing Act, Installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, NY (2021)
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Joan Semmel, A Balancing Act, Installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, NY (2021)
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Joan Semmel, A Balancing Act, Installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, NY (2021)
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Joan Semmel, A Balancing Act, Installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, NY (2021)
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Joan Semmel, A Balancing Act, Installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, NY (2021)
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Joan Semmel, A Balancing Act, Installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, NY (2021)
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Joan Semmel, A Balancing Act, Installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, NY (2021)
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Joan Semmel: Skin in the Game, Installation view, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA (2021-2022). Photo: Adrian Cubillas. Courtesy Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia.
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Joan Semmel: Skin in the Game, Installation view, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA (2021-2022). Photo: Adrian Cubillas. Courtesy Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia.
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Joan Semmel: Skin in the Game, Installation view, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA (2021-2022). Photo: Adrian Cubillas. Courtesy Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia.
Joan Semmel
Couch Diptych, 2019Oil on canvas in 2 parts72 x 120 in overall (182.9 x 304.8 cm overall)
72 x 60 in each (182.9 x 152.4 cm each)
73 3/4 x 122 x 2 1/4 in framed (187.3 x 309.9 x 5.7 cm framed)JS433Further images
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Since the 1970s, Joan Semmel has centered her practice around representations of the body from the female perspective, most often focusing on self-portraiture. 'We all have some difficulty in confronting...Since the 1970s, Joan Semmel has centered her practice around representations of the body from the female perspective, most often focusing on self-portraiture. "We all have some difficulty in confronting our aging physical selves," Semmel says, "so when you are painting yourself in that position, it really means that you have to say, 'I'm doing this and I'm not going to make it pretty. I'm not going to hide it, disguise it, no face-lifts. It's going to be really the way I see it.' This is not a disease that's happening. It's the natural evolution of a person."
In Couch Diptych (2019), Semmel's use of color, including a nearly monochromatic background, and the way in which her figures appear against baths of color, are reminiscent of her compositional approach to her Sex Paintings and Erotic Images series, for which she gained recognition early in her career. While both figures are self-images of the artist, they are distinct in palette, position, directions of lighting, and emotional expression. The use of highly saturated colors to render the right seated figure, produces a vibrating effect for each boldly placed brushstroke driving the body towards to foreground and establishing a sense of depth. The subtle variations in pigmentation of each form are made all the more apparent against their solid black surroundings, further emphasized by partially outlining silhouettes in thickly applied bright yellow, purple, and turquoise lines. She synthesizes her longstanding engagement with content and form to render aging and memory through the act of painting, insisting through her chosen subject that "the flesh permits us to fully experience our common humanity."
Exhibitions
2021: Joan Semmel: Skin in the Game, Pennsylvania Academy for the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
2021: Joan Semmel: A Balancing Act, Alexander Gray Associates, New YorkLiterature
Spens, Christiana and Joan Semmel. “Joan Semmel – interview: ‘I was simply not excluding those who did not conform to any preconceived notions of beauty.” Studio international, February 18, 2022.
Publications
McGovern, Adam. “Felshtomes.” Hilobrow, June 10, 2021.
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