Virgins Ab-whored
By Jeroen De Schrijver
"The Adoration of the Virgins", Ellen Depoorter’s installation of six large-scale paintings arranged side by side to form one large wall fresco (measuring 7 by 28 feet), comprises almost the full length of the long and narrow Transplant Gallery. On the opposite side, there is a floor to ceiling mirror. At first, the large scale of the painting in the small gallery space creates a forced, uncomfortable closeness and leaves you overwhelmed. It takes a while to fully take the work in.
The mural depicts twelve women, carefully choreographed against an idyllic renaissance landscape. Four of them gaze out at you, daring you to look at them and their exposed body. The others seem oblivious to the viewer’s presence and are deeply involved in satisfying each other. Their tacky attire subtly suggests the pornographic source images. Walking from one side to the other, the work reveals a filmic quality, as different details catch your attention, compelling a closer examination. There is another way of looking at the Adoration.: via the mirror the viewer is placed as an object in the work, seeing himself as part of the painting.
In contrast to her compatriot Luc Tuymans, whose painting technique consists of blurring the photographic image using shades of grey and earthy browns, Depoorter takes an opposite approach. She uses a full spectrum of bright colors which create sharply delineated figures that relate more to pop artists like Alex Katz. Depoorter’s use of luscious colors in well-defined shapes helps detach the porn stars from their corporal source and lifts them to iconographic dimensions. They become symbols of female seductiveness, body awareness and sexual power. With the landscape and the carefully balanced composition and color referring to the renaissance tradition, the women even become modern versions of Venus, or divine ideals of women. Immediately, the ongoing feminist dilemma comes to mind: Is this painting a mere representation and confirmation of the western beauty and erotic standards that women have to live up to? Here, Depoorter sides with Hannah Wilke; she supports a positive assertion of beauty, an eroticism by and for women, a self loving attitude. She pushes the "guilty" web porn images out of their male dominated consumption atmosphere and reclaims their original energy. In the process, Depoorter creates sensuous and seductive images, ripe with meaning and open to multiple interpretations.
