The Engine

Sonia Delaunay at the Tate Modern May 4th 2015   Sonia Delaunay began her career in fine art then gravitated towards applied art but also changed from being a figurative artist to an abstract one. Her career in art is also synonymous with the 20th century, her handprint on its history unmistakable, looming and ominous.  For a long time she was only known as Robert Delaunay’s wife but this changed from the 1950s onwards when her part in the European avante garde from the early 20th century onwards was finally acknowledged. Obviously Robert and Sonia Delaunay were an artistic partnership and the works she completed also seem part of her husband’s oeuvre as if the two formed a patent symbiosis. Sonia Stern (1885 – 1979) was born in Odessa before the Russian revolution. She was adopted by her wealthy uncle thus becoming Sonia Terk and this allowed her to travel to Karlsruhe in Germany and then to Paris in 1904 in order to study art. Her initial influences are cited as b...

Paul Murphy, Tate Modern, May 2015 Marlene Dumas: The Image as Burden at the Tate Modern on the 3rd of May, 2015  The first painting in this exhibition which grabbed my attention was Dumas’s portrait of Phil Spector. Firstly, his police mug shot without his wig. Secondly, replete with wig at his murder trial for the killing of actress and fashion model Lana Clarkson. Dumas’ seems to become more obsessed than preoccupied as her painting career develops. She followed up these works with portraits of Lady Di which seems sculptured and austere and Naomi Campbell which seems a more personal and subjective work and in keeping with the mix of the figurative, expressionist and primitive that typifies her work.  Marlene Dumas (1953 - ) was born in South Africa but grew up in Holland. Her painting reflects upon her early life in Africa evidenced by her involvement in painting and putative involvement in radical politics (and the politics of Africa which is not often seen i...