Sarah Lucas - 702

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With furrowed brow, lightly raised chin, and a cigarette in the right hand corner of her mouth, the artist looks causally to the left beyond the camera lens. The selected picture detail of the black and white photograph, and the artist’s lightly inclined head, suggest a leant back pose, whether it be in a chair or against a wall, and perhaps crossed arms. 

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The cigarette, far more widespread in the 1990s than now, can be read as a symbol of the time. With her posture and facial expression, Sarah Lucas emphasises a “masculine” pose and appears to adopt male airs. “Fighting Fire with Fire” is the title. Is the artist attacking men with their own weapons? She appears to have selected this figure of speech for the title of this portrait, taken by her partner at the time, for both its humorous and critical appeal. Thus for the artist her portraits, as well as the self-portrait series, always have something to do with the relationship between people in front and behind the camera, are an expression of time spent together, of collaborative creativity.

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Through the rapid overpainting of large areas in yellow, orange and red tones, and the serial hanging of the portraits, the artist generates an interesting tension: The portrait recedes somewhat behind the overpainting and at first glance appears to lose something of its immediacy and strength. However, the acrylic paint, applied in very different ways, brings new aspects of the facial expression and pose to light in each of the portraits.