-
Artworks
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup:
Joan Semmel: A Balancing Act, Installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, Germantown (2021)
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup:
Joan Semmel: A Balancing Act, Installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, Germantown (2021)
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup:
Joan Semmel: A Balancing Act, Installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, Germantown (2021)
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup:
Alexander Gray Associates, Installation view, Frieze Los Angeles, 2023
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup:
Alexander Gray Associates, Installation view, Frieze Los Angeles, 2023
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup:
Alexander Gray Associates, Installation view, Frieze Los Angeles, 2023
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup:
Alexander Gray Associates, Installation view, Frieze Los Angeles, 2023
Joan Semmel
Armed, 2020Oil on canvas47 3/4 x 48 in (121.3 x 121.9 cm)
49 7/8 x 49 3/4 x 2 1/4 in framed (126.7 x 126.4 x 5.7 cm framed)JS434Further images
-
(View a larger image of thumbnail 1
)
-
(View a larger image of thumbnail 2
)
-
(View a larger image of thumbnail 3
)
-
(View a larger image of thumbnail 4
)
-
(View a larger image of thumbnail 5
)
-
(View a larger image of thumbnail 6
)
-
(View a larger image of thumbnail 7
)
-
(View a larger image of thumbnail 8
)
-
(View a larger image of thumbnail 9
)
-
(View a larger image of thumbnail 10
)
-
(View a larger image of thumbnail 11
)
-
(View a larger image of thumbnail 12
)
Since the 1970s, Joan Semmel has centered her practice around issues of the body and sexuality. More recently, this engagement with her nude form has led to representation of the...Since the 1970s, Joan Semmel has centered her practice around issues of the body and sexuality. More recently, this engagement with her nude form has led to representation of the aging female body. In Armed (2020), Semmel celebrates color and flesh while highlighting the aging process through the accurate portrayal of her own body. “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.” As in her early Sex Paintings (1971) and Erotic Series (1972), the abstract use of color in Armed serves for the artist as a means of distinguishing her nude figures from the realm of pornography. Here, Semmel’s body fills the frame, distorted not only by the acid green tone of her skin, but also the distinct way in which the artist intimately crops her figure so that the viewer is placed on top of and above her. Working across five decades, Semmel considers the unifying element throughout her oeuvre “a single perspective: being inside the experience of femaleness and taking possession of it culturally.” Her work over the last half century firmly situates the female body as a place for autonomy and a vehicle to challenge the objectification and fetishization of female sexuality.
Exhibitions
2022: Joan Semmel, Morán Morán, Mexico City
2021: A Balancing Act, Alexander Gray Associates, Germantown, NY1of 2 -
(View a larger image of thumbnail 1
)
