Marlene Dumas

The oeuvre of Marlene Dumas is primarily characterized by her watercolors. Suggestive works, they appear to be based mostly on photographs from magazines which Dumas blurs, crops, or distorts. In doing so, the artist explores the sexualized dynamics between the picture, the painter, and the viewer. Her always openly sensual representations of human bodies and faces deal with some of the questions central to life. Wet Dreams features a broad selection of Dumas' loaded and expressive watercolors, expanding on the primary topics found throughout her work: the clicha picture of the female, the relations between the sexes, role playing, sexuality and pornography, guilt and violence, birth and death. Specially featured here are a number of collaborative works which the artist created with her daughter and with the painter Bert Boogaard.