“For one thing, you must have a head to have a portrait,” she explains in an interview with curator Rebecca Shaykin that accompanies the show, titled In the Flesh. “A self-image is what you carry in your own head about who you are”.
She was never interested in creating a persona, but rather “an iconic figure”. For half a century, she’s met that ambition with flawless élan. Her painted bodies have heft and presence, amplified to monumental scale. Lying in silent solitude, she is a veritable (if headless) Venus, an abundance of curves, bulges and dangling breasts. One hand cradles the sole of a foot with casual hedonism, and the effect is electric. But that literal navel-gazing has a social mission.
