Marlene Dumas

South African artist Marlene Dumas has cultivated a unique position within the world of figurative painting since the early 1980s, focusing on how the human body is translated into an image. Dumas dose not use models, but instead takes her images from mass media and popular culture sources, particularly newspapers and television. According to Dumas, ''what interested me was to make a statement about peoples' frames of mind and the relationships between them.'' Dumas' pictures impress with their urgent realism--but within their provocative energy lurk provocative questions about gender, identity, oppression, sexual and ethnic violence, and the situation of women and minorities; Dumas is always seeking to initiate new thought processes and critical strategies. Featuring the series of drawings One Hundred Models and Endless Rejects, this book provides an overview of the last ten years of Dumas' brilliant and challenging work.