Stern 2004

Curator: Looking at this work, I feel... almost dizzy. It's like staring up at a sky that is too bright and too dark all at once. The high contrast certainly gives me vertigo. Editor: We're looking at "Stern", a 2004 acrylic on canvas piece by Marlene Dumas. I think that sense of disorientation you feel is quite potent; the upturned face, the stark contrasts... it suggests a confrontation with something immense, something perhaps terrifying, even. Curator: Immense and terrifying—yes, and vulnerable. The exposed throat, the almost aggressive upward gaze... It's like being asked to witness something incredibly intimate, yet simultaneously confronting a power dynamic, too. Maybe like watching a lamb staring down a slaughterhouse? Editor: I can see that reading. Dumas's work often explores these complexities of vulnerability and power, particularly concerning the female form. In many ways, her stark palette and somewhat smeared style serves to undermine conventional beauty standards, but that only makes it harder to look away from what feels urgent. Curator: The looseness is what fascinates me most, I think. It could be unfinished, accidental almost, yet so considered. That deliberate imperfection. Do you think it reflects her views on identity itself as fractured? Editor: Definitely, because what she is highlighting in "Stern", amongst others, is the fractured, complicated self. Identity as a construction that is constantly being reshaped. Her color palette itself feels political, with the dark shades seemingly about to drown the white expanses in the portrait. The expressionistic style then feels less like just a 'choice' and more like a purposeful intervention, a breaking away from imposed conventions. Curator: It leaves me thinking, perhaps inevitably, of all the historical power imbalances that have dictated the presentation of female identity. Thank you, Marlene Dumas. Editor: Precisely. By leaving it open to our gaze, the artist urges us to interrogate not just what we are seeing, but *how* we are seeing and from what vantage point. Food for thought, indeed.