Tamara Malcher (Germany) | Fire, 2021 | Acrylic, oil pastel and marker on canvas, 170x170

Signed, titled, and dated "FIRE 2021 Tamara Malcher" (on the reverse).

Tamara Malcher

Born in 1995 in Recklinghausen, Germany, Tamara Malcher is currently studying at the Academy of Art in Münster. She lives and works in Münster, Germany.

Naked, voluminous female bodies—set in motion, dancing, or concealed behind thick plant leaves—serve as the starting point for the large-format canvas works of German artist Tamara Malcher.

The bright, luminous colors of her paintings harmonize with the figures and highlight the aesthetics of her expressively painted bodies, which boldly and confidently occupy the surface of the canvas in all their clarity and richness.

Her forms are biomorphic and vibrant. Limbs soften and transform into rubber-like shapes of color, flowing effortlessly and dynamically with the body. They do not separate from it but rather carry it forward, resulting in compositions full of power and motion. The surfaces of the bodies are tense; the forms are active and extend to the very edges of the canvas.

Malcher does not seek to provoke—she seeks to liberate.

Her women resist rigid, outdated representations of femininity. The angular facial profiles and stylized hairstyles reference traditional imagery, only to subvert it. These figures free themselves from stigmatization and the conventional “image of woman,” a construct that in art history is deeply entwined with the “image of painting” itself—a network of expectations, symbols, and so-called rules of representation that have shaped (and continue to shape) how we view art.

Malcher’s female bodies almost burst from the picture plane with vitality and force, celebrating and affirming both life and painting.

As with many contemporary female artists, her work raises questions about the role of women in art and art history—questions that lie at the heart of Malcher’s practice and reinforce the relevance and urgency of her work today.

The viewer cannot look past the naked, living female bodies in Malcher’s paintings—and that is exactly the point.