Marlene Dumas: Human Essence
“You can do many more things with the human face than a bit of likeness.”
This is a full lesson from inside the Artist Inspired course.
Enjoy exploring the joys of process with Marlene, and if you want more, you'll find information about the course below!
In this lesson:
- A brief background on Marlene Dumas
- Short video: Marlene talks about her Rejects series
- Introduction to lesson videos
- Materials used
- Suggested focus
- Key words to guide you
- Lesson videos
- Discussion of her approach
- Ways to adapt and expand on her techniques
- Artists you might also like in this area
- Further resources
*some of the links - in red - are affiliate links. If you use them to purchase any materials I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.
About Marlene
- Born 1953 in Cape Town
- Now lives and works in Amsterdam {since 1976}
- Her painting The Visitor sold for £3.1 million, breaking the record for work by a female living artist
- She never paints directly from life, but works from photographs, and has been criticised for it
- Her work explores themes of sexuality, love, death, shame, political oppression, identity, and feminism, often referencing art history, popular culture and current affairs
- She has painted unknown subjects and famous faces, including Amy Winehouse, Naomi Campbell, Princess Diana, even Osama bin Laden
"Second hand images can generate first hand emotions."
This lesson is based on Dumas' ink portraits.
First, watch the video below as she talks about the ones she made for her 'Rejects' series:
Now watch the two demo videos below. You may like to watch both at once first, or play one at a time while you follow along.
Materials used:
-
Seawhite all media cartridge paper {start with cheap paper while you get used to the process. I used A3 size - about 11 x 17 in}
-
Three brushes of different sizes
-
Thin stick {a pen nib would also work well}
-
Photos of faces {from magazines, personal photographs, selfies etc}
-
Jar of water
-
Rag or paper towel
Your optional challenge or focus for this lesson:
Use a selfie and make several ink drawings from it, trying as many approaches as you can think of.
Key words to keep in mind for this lesson:
- essence
- speed
- values
- suggestive
Feel free to add your own!
Video One
Video Two
Marlene's Approach
The beauty of this method of portraiture is how relaxed it is. Dumas gives us permission to work from photographs instead of life, to loosen up on the realism, to work quickly and make mistakes.
From my research, she appears to be a charming and relatable mix of opposites; passionate and deeply serious about her work with a simultaneous lighthearted, humorous, energetic demeanour. The work is often dark, confrontational, provocative, and yet she comes across as joyfully expressive and somewhat happily chaotic. She's not afraid of criticism, nor does she come across as arrogant; in fact she is often quoted making quite self deprecating comments about her work.
“The biggest difficulty for me is to be able to concentrate properly. Every time I start up again, I think: I don’t know if I know how to make a painting. I always imagine I’m going to change my whole life, to start writing books instead. But the good thing now is I know I will feel all these things [in advance]. Otherwise I would be desperate.”
Don't forget, though, that Dumas has been painting this way for more than thirty years - she may make it look easy but just as with any art technique, that's a sign of mastery gained by many hundreds of hours of work. So if your explorations feel hard or awkward at first, or all your portraits seem to be disastrous, take heart from that - from knowing that it takes practice to capture essence in a few strokes, and from Dumas herself who happily admits she doesn't always achieve what she's aiming for first, second, even third time around.
Ways to adapt and expand on Marlene's techniques
- Move away from monochrome and try coloured inks {I like these} or watercolours
- Play with scale - what if you made a very tiny series with as few strokes per portrait as possible? What if you made some very large ones?
- Try different ways of starting, as I did in the videos, such as wetting the paper first vs going in on dry paper; or starting with the larger areas and working towards the detail vs starting with the details
- Try animal portraits using this approach
- Walnut ink is a fun alternative to black
“You can have a drawing of a dead person that is a very lively drawing, or you can have a dead drawing of a person that’s alive. When you work with something like the human face, you mustn’t be so seduced only by the likeness. I also want to see: with how few lines can you get it?”
Marlene Dumas
Love this artist? You might also like...
Schalk van der Merwe
Tina Berning
Maya Bloch
Sally Bourke
Lisa Krannichfeld
Further Resources
Video in which Dumas discusses her process and source material, including sketchbooks from her student days
Video about her series Great Men, where she shares her struggles with getting a likeness
Slideshow of her portraits
Another short video of Dumas talking about her exhibition at MoMA
Fascinating article about her
And one more. :)
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Hello, I'm Tara 👋
Artist, author, creative encourager, and founder of the Happy Artist Studio.
I've been where you are, many times! I’ve lost touch with my connection to inspiration and I’ve found my way back, and continue to do so.
I’ve also found myself tangled up in the fine line between inspiration and being heavily influenced by another artist, and not knowing quite what’s mine.
We all have a unique energetic signature that comes through in our art and make it cohesive and recognisable, if we're prepared to keep at it.
It can be very easy to lose track of that however, with all the inspiration around us, and our curious artist minds constantly at work!
This course is about harnessing that inspiration, and expanding on it, so you can become ever more familiar with what’s truly yours, and develop it into distinctive and consistent art, while exploring the legacy of those who've gone before us.
With Artist Inspired II I’ve combined my love of art history and some of my favourite women artists with a range of approaches and ideas to jump start and develop your art!
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