As the curtain fell earlier this year on Joan Semmel's poignant exhibition, An Other View, at Xavier Hufkens in Belgium, the impact of her work continues to resonate, challenging long-held perceptions of beauty, age, and the female body. Spanning nearly five decades of artistic exploration, this exhibition provided a rare opportunity to witness the evolution of Semmel's practice, as she dismantled the societal obsession with youth and reimagined the female nude through a distinctly feminist lens.
Joan Semmel, an American artist renowned for her candid depictions of the female body, has long used her art as a platform to interrogate and critique the male gaze. Her work is characterised by an unflinching examination of the ageing process, and this exhibition was no exception. Semmel's approach is both deeply personal and universally resonant, as she uses her own body as a reference point to explore broader themes of identity, self-perception, and the relentless passage of time.
An Other View featured eight oil paintings and two works on paper, created between 1971 and 2018, each a testament to Semmel's enduring commitment to portraying the female form with authenticity and nuance. Through her muted colour palette and abstract expressionist influences, Semmel strips away the societal veneers that often obscure the realities of the ageing body. Her work is not about idealisation, but rather about representation - depicting the body as it is, with all its imperfections, marks, and changes.
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