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It's a New Age

A work made of acrylic and oil on canvas.
Courtesy of the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles.

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  • A work made of acrylic and oil on canvas.

Date:

1992

Artist:

Sue Williams
American, born 1954

About this artwork

Sue Williams’s darkly sarcastic caricature paintings address tough topics such as domestic violence, rape, pornography, and misogyny. In such early paintings as It’s A New Age, characteristic scrawls, doodles, erasures, graphic representations of the body, and text convey the artist’s own scathingly critical thoughts. Her voice, which takes the form of transcribed, seemingly unedited notes, addresses her identity as both a woman and a painter. Willams uses verbal puns and scatological imagery to comment on the degradation of the female body—through sexual violence and abuse—and the psychological trauma of self-loathing. The artist parodies the politics of “choice”—she declares in the painting that she is “free to choose” and “I chose fat thighs”—by articulating personal struggle.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Contemporary Art

Artist

Sue Williams

Title

It's a New Age

Place

United States (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

Made 1992

Medium

Acrylic and oil on canvas

Dimensions

162.6 × 137.2 cm (64 × 54 in.)

Credit Line

Norman Wait Harris Purchase Fund

Reference Number

2006.68

Copyright

Courtesy of the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles.

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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