Known for paintings of women, Lisa Yuskavage's images occupy the space between high and low; the
sacred and the profane. Much of her new works explore a complex psychological direction — specifically,
symbiotic relationships. Influenced in part by images that depict power struggles, including Baroque
sculptures (specifically Gianlorenzo Bernini) and Giorgio de Chirico's late Gladiator paintings,
Yuskavage's figures hover or climb upon one another — caught in embraces that appear to shift between
tenderness and violence. Within these paradoxical relationships, it is often difficult to decipher what is real
and what is imagined; what is weighted and what is weightless; what is made of paint and what transcends
the medium entirely. Yuskavage's subtle degrees of fiction and representation culminate in questionable,
unsettling quasi-realities.
Yuskavage currently has two concurrent exhibitions in New York. On display at Zwirner & Wirth is a selection of recent drawings and small oil paintings; the David Zwirner
exhibition will feature Yuskavage's new, large canvases.
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