Marlene Dumas (b1953) has been called ‘the world’s most interesting figure painter’. Her beautifully painted works, which can be seen in museums worldwide, explore themes of sexuality, love, death and shame, while borrowing from popular culture, art history and current affairs. She draws from her extensive archive of images collected over the years, as well as photographs she has taken. ‘Second-hand images,’ she has said, ‘can generate first-hand emotions.’
Central to her practice has been the human figure – often naked or partially clothed – with subjects ranging from her daughter and celebrities such as Amy Winehouse and Phil Spector to the more notorious likes of Osama bin Laden. Born in Cape Town, South Africa, under apartheid, Dumas moved to the Netherlands in 1976, where she came to prominence in the mid-1980s. Tate Modern’s large-scale survey is the most significant exhibition of her work ever to be held in Europe, charting her career from early paintings through to new works on paper. To coincide with this, Tate Etc. brought together a fellow artist and a magazine editor to talk to her in her Amsterdam studio – about porn, politics and personalities.