Sarah Lucas
artist research
lumi
Basic biography
Sarah Lucas studied at the Working Men’s College in 1982, and continued her education in at the London College of Printing in 1983. After finishing her her fine arts undergrad, she continued her study at Goldsmith College between 1984 and 1987. Her first commercial exhibition, Bunny Gets Snookered, with the help of an art dealer named Sadie Coles. Sadie Coles owns and operates the Sadie Coles HQ, an art gallery located in London, England. Her early works were largely influenced by radical feminist movements at the time. She works largely with common objects and creates simple and often suggestive sculptures with the intention of adding commentary to issues like the objectification of women. She also worked with photography, mainly self portraits. Her practise is self described as playful, and letting her hands do more work than her head.
Curious Orange
First looking at the work it’s obviously a bit shocking, and kind of funny looking. The sculpture is a distorted amalgamation of a pair of breasts and legs leaned over a stool. The styling of it is simple and most of the lines of the partially figures are smooth and round, giving a look of femininity on top of the obvious breasts. The implied image of a woman bent over the stool already gives the figure an air of submission, but it’s taken further to dehumanization by reducing the features to nothing but legs, breasts and the slight impression of a butt. In addition, the choice to turn the sculptural work into a set of prints to be produced could be an even further representation of the commodification of women’s bodies.
This work relates to my own ideas as a complete opposition. As I try to escape the immediate assumptions brought on by the inclusion of breasts or soft feminine figures without a need to cut them out entirely. In this work that is essentially all that is pictured.
Sarah Lucas, 2023, digital print of cialinen beige canvas, 50 editions; 23 ⅖i n x 16 ½ in
Pairfect Match
If you were to visit this work in person you would likely have a far different impression as I was shocked to see the actual size of the work being ten feet. The piece is made to emulate a newspaper. With slightly faded black and white images with bold text styled like a page full of advertisements. Most of the images are of breasts, and one of a woman lying nearly nude alongside some headshots of different women. This work is one of her earlier commentary pieces on the commodification of women. In this piece brought to an even more literal level as a parody game with an imaginary monetary prize is proposed- to match the women’s faces to the pairs of breasts and the body.
This work is incredibly eye catching for obvious reasons and initially seemed almost nonsensical but after a few minutes of closer examination despite the lack of very clear photos it made more sense. It’s a very effective mockery of just how absurd the casual and constant sexualization of women in society is. The work remains just as impactful now as it was at the time it was originally shown in my opinion.
Sarah Lucas, 1992, Phototransfer on paper laid canvas, 7.8 ft x 10.5 ft