All posts by Rosie Lesso

“I’m often thinking about how paintings position you as a viewer.” Caroline Walker’s enigmatic, quietly unnerving paintings hint at silent narratives without giving away the game. Women are her subjects, seen from afar in modern houses, nail bars, hotels or hospital beds, as we become passive voyeurs into their daily lives. Much like the 20th…

“Success, for me, is staying true to who you are and not deviating off a path.” Amy Sherald’s striking, visually arresting portraits capture the indefinable spirit of contemporary America. Since painting Michelle Obama’s portrait in 2018, the press were quick to portray her as an overnight success, but this undermines the strength, determination and years…

“I am looking for that space where you can’t have that singular, particular experience. It’s about what is undefined, unstable – and for me, that’s important politically.” Spidery lines whisper skeletal, architectural structures, coloured streaks swoop and swirl and ink blots become darkened clouds of soot and smoke: this is the electrifyingly complex landscape of…

“Painting is closest to poetry of all the arts: not being able to explain something, why does one thing sound so great next to another? You can’t put your finger on it, that’s what my work’s about.” Cecily Brown’s paintings pulsate with fleshy indulgence as thickly painted bodies writhe into and over one another, caught…

“The silhouette says a lot with very little information, but that’s also what the stereotype does.” Brutal, shocking and filled with tragedy, Kara Walker’s re-telling of black history aims for the jugular. The artist made her name with cut out silhouettes illustrating bloody, violent acts inflicted upon America’s black population, particularly women, during the American…

“Repetition and revision is central to my working process, this idea of stacking and layering and building up densities and recoveries.” Ellen Gallagher is a minimalist at heart, arranging tight grids and decorative repeat patterns that echo the measured abstractions of Sol LeWitt or Agnes Martin. But lean in closer; woven tightly into the fabric…

“My work has affected people over the years … because it draws people’s attention to … the things in their lives. There’s a certain amount of humility that goes with that.” Rachel Whiteread’s ghostly sculptures transform empty, forgotten space into solid mass. Drawing us to unusual, forgotten places is her forte, from the dark recesses of a childhood cupboard, the dusty space under the…

“It’s important to express oneself… provided the feelings are real and are taken from your own experience.” The act of seeing is central to Berthe Morisot’s practice – both tangible, visible subjects and simmering psychological tensions beneath. With a canny, perceptive eye she captured scenes and people from 19th century Parisian life, famously painting women…