South African born artist Marlene Dumas set a new record this month for the most expensive living female artist, when her painting The Visitor, fetched £3.1 million (R47 million) at a Sotheby's auction.
Dumas's painting was sold to New York private dealer Nancy Whyte at the Sotheby's Contemporary Art Evening Sale held in London on the 1st of July. The £3,177,250 million bid for the painting surpasses Dumas' previous record of £1.8 million set in February 2005.
Described by Sotheby's as a psychologically challenging and strikingly beautiful painting, The Visitor is a large scale (180cm x 300cm) depiction of a group of female streetwalkers.
The painting shows six young sex-workers in a room looking towards a door at the end of the room. The poses of the women suggest that they are competing for their trade while anticipating the imminent arrival of a client.
Since the door is illuminated, the viewer's attention is also drawn to this door.
"The viewer has been inserted into a shadowy, licentious den, behind a scene that is infused with the implication of taboo, layered ambiguities and an unclear narrative that affords a strong sense of unease," states the Sotheby's catalogue.
Dumas work is well known for its critical approach to social topics such as birth, death, sex, life, race, identity, motherhood and feminism.
"Her female characters are fundamentally rooted in the current, contemporary world, inhabiting a very different space from any nineteenth or early twentieth-century precedent. Contradicting the sentimental, Dumas depictions of women are often ambivalent and depict the parasitic nature of humankind," says Sotheby's
Dumas was born in Kuilsriver, Cape Town in 1954. She graduated with a BA in Fine Art from the University of Cape Town in 1975 before moving to the Netherlands where she now lives and works.
As one of the industry's most celebrated and acclaimed female artists, Dumas' work has been exhibited in the world's leading galleries from Paris, London and New York to Madrid, Tokyo and Germany.
Dumas hosted her first solo exhibition in South Africa last year. Intimate Relations was seen at the South African National Gallery in Cape Town and the Standard Bank Gallery in Johannesburg.
