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Marlene Dumas (1953, Cape Town) belongs to the generation of painters who emerged in the 1980s under labels such as Wild Painting. Her insistence on modes of figurative representation may be considered a reflection of that generational proximity. On the other hand, Dumas never integrated into any artists group this may partly be attributed to her arriving in Holland only after having started to study art in Cape Town (until 1975) more importantly, however, she never joined in the contemporary painters rejection of conceptualism. On the contrary, all through her career her painting and drawing has had a strong focus on conceptual issues such as the position of the author, interpretation, the art world, art history, family, gender, sexuality/erotics, and death, which she has also reflected in powerful and independent writing, sometimes integrated into the painted works, sometimes independent of them.
