“I could say – South Africa is my content and Holland is my form, but then, the images I deal with are familiar to almost everyone, everywhere. I deal with second-hand images and first-hand experiences.” – Marlene Dumas
In our “Female Iconoclasts” series, we feature some of the most radical women artists of our time; those who defied prevailing social and art conventions in order to pursue their passion and contribute their unique vision to society. South African artist Marlene Dumas is considered one of the most significant contemporary artists, whose intense, emotionally charged paintings address existentialist themes and political issues.
About Marlene Dumas
Marlene Dumas was born in 1953 in Cape Town, South Africa. She studied at an English-language university in the city, and it was there that the artist, who had grown up in a rural area with a family who owned a vineyard, started to learn a great deal not only about her own world, but also about the world beyond. It was 1972 and she had never before taken classes with people of colour besides her own, or spent time with people from different religious backgrounds. At university, she was introduced to avant-garde artists, poets, playwrights and thinkers such as Picasso, Pollock, Lichtenstein, Ginsburg, Bergman, Godard, Resnais, Jean Genet, Athol Fugard and Tennessee Williams. Even though she wasn’t sure she would have the power within herself to do it, she knew she wanted to be an avant-gardist herself. At the end of her degree, she won a bursary to study abroad in the Netherlands for two years. When she left South Africa, she was in a sense relieved: townships were burning, there was a great deal of censorship and the question of Apartheid was complicated to discuss yet impossible to ignore. In the Netherlands, she felt safe and was able to read all the books that had been banned in South Africa.