Lisa Brice Charleston Trust
Installation Views
“There is no hierarchy between artist and model, as is generally implied in historical studio scenes of male painters and their female models; they are all on their own time, whether active or paused, in contemplation or in conversation with one another. Nude and clothed figures are interchangeable, and the active and the passive are similarly equal in status within the scene. They are all artists at work in one way or another” – Lisa Brice
In this new series of works, Lisa Brice explores the lines between interior and exterior, public and private, artist and model.
With echoes of artists such as Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas and Pablo Picasso, Lisa Brice’s work challenges, reinterprets and takes ownership of traditional depictions of the female nude and interrogates the male gaze which has dominated Western art for centuries.
Brice’s paintings are vivid and bold. She uses layered brush strokes that capture her figures in snapshots of action. They bring an energy to her subjects giving them agency and self-possession.
By painting her figures in rich blues Brice adds to their ambiguity. It makes it difficult to define the age or ethnicity of her subjects and as such discourages an easy ‘read’ of the female form. The hierarchy between the artist and their model in the studio is broken down. In Brice’s works the female figure is both – concerned only with the moment, her medium, but mostly herself.
Lisa Brice’s new monograph Smoke and Mirrors is available to order in our shop.
Learn more at the Charleston Trust.