Critical Artist Expression: Lisa Yuskage

Lisa Yuskavage in her studio in Brooklyn, NY

Lisa Yuskavage, “Small Morning”(2005)

Lisa Yuskage is a 55-year-old figurative artist from Philadelphia, currently living and working in New York. Throughout her 30 year career, she has developed a unique style, channeling artists such as Francisco de Goya to Édouard Vuillard, Philip Gustonin, Giovanni Bellini, Johannes Vermeer and Edgar Degas. Her painting can be easily identified because her subjects are usually naked women with lively landscapes, mysterious interiors and bold figures.  She masters the genre of nude, which is a religious subject matter for centuries.   

One of her paintings is called “Small Morning”, which illustrates a pregnant woman with lots of fruits on the table clearly emphasize fertility. It is interesting that Yuskavage main subject in this painting is a fertile woman. The fact that she uses lively colors shows that the painting is full of life and energy. She has a positive depiction of this painting perhaps because she came from a family that fully supported her dream to be an artist, even though she came from a place where are and education did not exist. During one of her interviews, Yuskavage mentioned that a nun in her family once made her think to herself: “the struggle with grace in my work is a struggle between good and evil. Why do I insist on allowing elements of pornography into my work? I think it’s because I’m aware that it’s the benign presence of the devil. Whether I believe in the devil is really not the point. I’m talking about the idea. I think this idea of the sacred and the profane has always existed in art. It’s a constant theme for me: the struggle between the desire to be right and the desire to be wrong. I think it’s all just wanting to be true. And what is true and correct and right in art is often wrong in the world. I’m not advocating women going around showing off their boobies. I’m aware this is art and it isn’t real life. I’m not a libertine. I’m actually more prudish than people would think I am.” This is a powerful message because Yuskage purpose behind her artworks is to show the sacredness and profanity in art in its truest form, whether she’s doing it wrong or right. It’s really about expressing art in her own eyes even though her paintings have been read as disturbing and ironic. This shows that she is a powerful and bold artist, just like her subject matters.