Joan Semmel has centered her painting practice around issues of the body, from desire to aging, as well as those of identity. Semmel’s interest in figuration depicting the female nude began after she returned to New York in the 1970s, following her painting career in Spain, where she worked in abstraction. It was in New York, where she became an active voice in Second Wave Feminism, that her work turned towards responding to pornography, popular culture, and undermining the dominance of the male gaze. Skin in the Game (2019) is Semmel’s largest painting to date and continues her exploration of nude self-portraiture through expressive brushwork and brilliant color. Depicting her body in various compositions and across shifting scales, the surface of the painting serves as varied geographies comprised of a range of painting techniques, including smoother and more textured strokes, as well as washes and drips. Long associated with the representation of female sexuality, Semmel positions this latest painting in direct relation to her well-known works of the 70s which incorporated vivid color in the rendering of bodies in sexual play, but with a very specific inflection. At this later stage in life, she says, ‘You’re still dealing with sexuality but it’s not about seduction… The colors are the seduction here.’
