Influenced at an early stage by art movements that celebrate gestural, informal and spontaneous practice such as art informel, tachisme and surrealism, Lassnig developed a singular body of work, making boldly expressive, brightly coloured oil paintings with the human figure at the centre of her compositions. Using herself as the subject of her paintings, they address the fragility of the body, the ageing process and the passing of time.
In 1948 Lassnig coined the term “body consciousness” to describe her practice. In this style, Lassnig only depicted the parts of her body that she actually felt as she worked. As such, many of her self-portraits depict figures that are missing body parts or use unnatural colours. By the 1960s Lassnig turned away from abstract painting altogether and began to focus more wholly on the human body and psyche. Since that time she created hundreds of self-portraits. Most of her work in the 1970s and 1980s paired her own image with objects, animals or other people, frequently with a blocked out or averted gaze, suggesting inferiority.
I’m intrigued most by her paintings that resemble fetishes and obscure sexual references and bodies. Some look like older, bigger men with what appears to be female children, which is controversial but really pushes the boundaries of what we can express and what we can’t, questioning if having fantasies like this is innocent if they’re only in their heads, or if they’re bad and should be shunned. This could also be said for the fetish with animals. Even though the fetish of food seems extremely innocent in comparison to these, I still find them useful in my research.
saratrouble 