Interpretation: "Changing"

Changing

Lisa Yuskavage, circa 2003

12 September 2012

By Lauren Painter

There is something about Lisa Yuskavage and her body of work. I was instantly captured by her depictions of the female form and body, as well as the color schemes she articulates in most of her controversial pieces. She has a brilliant grasp on color concepts and what palettes emphasize what and the mood she is trying to place upon her audience.

What caught my eye was Changing. Maybe it was the colors, or maybe it was the subtlety of the movement taking place in this particular moment Yuskavage chose to recreate on canvas. Perhaps it is a combination of both.

“When Yuskavage first began painting these hyper-sexualised women, she says she imagined a fictional male gaze.” –Skye Sherwin, The Guardian

Within all her works, Ms. Yuskavage is trying to present the female form to the audience the way women are seen as an entirety. Her paintings depict women with bloated stomachs, wide hips and larger-than-average breasts, blushing cheeks, button noses, and small lips. Their bodies are the primary focus, and then our attention transitions from the nude form to the petite faces, with flowing hair and innocent faces. Even the body postures are feminine and delicate; most of the women in these paintings are not looking directly at the viewer, but they are entranced in that specific moment with whatever they are partaking in, which makes the audience question what they are thinking about, or if they are thinking about anything at all. They are seductively welcoming and forcefully challenging all at the same time. These women seem to examine and portray society’s obsession with female sexuality.

Yuskavage might be attempting to make the audience uncomfortable, but she was not successful with me. In opposition, I loved her works and Changing may actually be one of my favorite new pieces of art. It captures the female form in a candid moment, and the curvature that is seen (apparently) from a male’s eye. The color scheme sets a calm, relaxed mood as well, and you cannot really make sense of what this woman is thinking, but I believe that is what the point is—it’s all visual.