Intersections Exhibition Catalog (PDF) - Minneapolis College of Art ...

PATRICIA
OLSON
ROXI
SWANSON
ARTISTS’ STATEMENT
As figurative painters, we are drawn to the emotional, expressive
possibilities of the human figure, and in our collaborative
conversation we have extended our dialogue to include other
painters from art history.
We began by studying specific self-portraits,
Patricia choosing Max Beckmann’s Self-Portrait in
Tuxedo, and Roxi choosing Jenny Saville’s Knead.
Roxi was interested in Saville’s mark-making
technique and the sickly quality of the color, while
Patricia was taken with Beckmann’s posture, at
once confident and guarded, and wanted to bring
a feminist update to this very male presentation
of self.
precedents from which to work. Roxi looked
to Egon Schiele’s Portrait of the Artist’s Wife
Standing to paint Patricia’s portrait, her interest
being in conveying the innocent quality of the
figure. Patricia selected Jean-Auguste-Dominique
Ingres’s Madame Moitessier, again interested in
translating this nineteenth-century presentation
of femininity into a twenty-first century sensibility.
After painting self-portraits in the manner of
these two artists, we then painted portraits
of one another, again choosing art historical
INTERSECTIONS