On Sexual Paintings and Shifting Images: An Interview with Joan Semmel

I have known about Joan Semmel for a long time. But recently I began thinking about the parallel concerns between my own practice and the work of this artist 20 or so years my senior. I know the conditions for making art were far more difficult for women when Semmel’s career began, and that she has been important both for her work and for her attitude toward working. The positions she staked out were far more radical, disruptive, and bold in the context of the early ’70s than they were when, for example, I began working on my photography series love in the ruins; sex over 50 in 2003. And she was brave enough not only to stick to her guns, but to go against the grain, making figurative work when it was most out of fashion in the art world.

Joan Semmel was always articulate about what she intended. She was breaking the rules. She was trying to create visual material that spoke to women and to female desire. And she inhabits her skin in a remarkable and comfortable way. You can see that in every self-portrait she paints, and you can see it when you meet her in person. The current survey of her work at Alexander Gray Associates — moving through abstract works from the late ’60s, her early drawings, and her figurative works spanning nearly 45 years — seemed like the right occasion to request an interview. I had never met Joan before, and I knew that an interview would afford me an afternoon in her company.