Judie Bamber at Richard Telles Fine Arts - Los Angeles, California - Review of Exhibitions

Art in America, Nov, 1994 by Michael Duncan

Judie Bamber's three untitled, meticulously rendered paintings of vulvae represent a significant break with the programmatic feminism of her previous work. Here, three 6 1/2-by-2-inch panels mounted on 2-inch wood-block supports face the viewer without the mediation of Bamber's trademark ironic titles. These close-up images speak for themselves, thereby bringing to oil painting the detailed depiction of a formerly taboo image: female genitalia.

Bamber beautifully executes these intimate "portraits," with every freckle, fold and pubic hair painstakingly rendered, and her technical mastery only enhances their impact. No photograph of private parts could capture the sensuousness of Bamber's works in oil. The three vulvae warmly evoke a variety of natural forms. The metaphorical associations that spring to the viewer's mind - a cave, a shell, a sea slug - are themselves rarely portrayed, evocative images. The wisps and tangles of pubic hair seem like abstract fields setting off the fleshy organs. In one painting, the subject's pudendum is shaved and the orifice invitingly exposed. These works matter-of-factly evoke a kind of organic intrigue, in which the traditional "mystery" of the female is openly depicted.

These are paintings that can't be dismissed, even by the most hard-nosed critics of painting. Bamber entices viewers to linger over the images, studying her technique, color choices and use of light and shade. The paintings' miniature size also reinforces their impact, luring viewers to within inches of the canvas for one-on-one exploration of this unfamiliar nether region.

Bamber's paintings operate very differently than Courbet's famed naughty picture The Origin of the World or Zoe Leonard's Documenta installation that juxtaposed photographs of female genitalia with 18th- and 19th-century portraits of women. Bamber's loving acts of attention are a kind of ipso facto feminism and carry a surprising emotional punch. Fascinatingly, the paintings seem to prompt differing responses in women and men - and in gays and straights - thus demonstrating how unfamiliar the human body really is, after all these years. Amazingly, a realistic image of a bit of anatomy possessed by over half the human population can still seem controversial and politically charged.