Untitled 1980/1
Newsomeâs nude is highly stylised and no longer a recognisable individual. Although her eyelids are modestly lowered, the exaggerated shape of her head, with its carefully hatched linaer brush-strokes, juts out uncomfortably close to the spectator. Her head appears cut off from the rest of her body which is immersed in bath water; her shoulders and nipple multiply beneath the ripples. The figurative artist Victor Newsome is very interested in the problems of creating the illusion of real space and depth on a flat surface. He executed a series of paintings and drawings of figures in bathrooms which presented him with the challenge of recreating the reflections and distortions seen in the mirrors and through water.
