Colour me bad
The face is outlined in a glowing, ill green, its double profiles – one closed and one open-mouthed – suggesting a simple flipbook animation. The cartoonish speech bubble of the title is a puny fleshy knot, a tongue tied. It threatens to melt into the background of noisy lurid pink. An eye bulges, frightened.
Keeping on
The great Austrian painter Maria Lassnig was in her late 80s when she created this work. Others from this period directly channel the experience of being in hospital, physical limits and pain.
Under the skin
This wasn’t exactly new territory, though. From the late 1940s on, her self-portraits consistently tackled the challenges of being alive. Language Mesh of 1999 similarly addresses the nightmare of self-expression, replacing her vocal chords with an imprisoning grille.
Body conscious
Lassnig’s “body awareness” paintings dominated her output. For these, she painted only what she could physically feel. The resulting abstractions are both creepy and droll, suggesting an artist who was never afraid to laugh at life’s tragi-comedy.
Maria Lassnig: A Painting Survey, 1950-2007, Hauser & Wirth, W1, to 29 April
