Marlene Dumas

South African · b. 1953

Marlene Dumas (b. 1953, Cape Town) is a South African artist based in Amsterdam whose psychologically charged paintings and drawings explore identity, sexuality, love, death, race, politics, and the complexities of representing the human body. Rather than working primarily from live models, Dumas draws from an extensive archive of photographs, newspapers, film stills, art-historical images, pornography, and personal snapshots. Through fluid brushwork, translucent washes, altered colour, and cropped compositions, she transforms these source images into emotionally ambiguous portraits and figures. Faces and bodies remain central to her practice, often carrying a tension between intimacy and public imagery. Since the 1980s, Dumas has become one of the most influential figures in contemporary figurative painting.