Natalya Hughes Naked girl behind a curtain (Franzi)

Exploring the difficult question of female representation, Naked girl behind a curtain (Franzi) is a response to German artist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s 1926 painting of the same name; one of many nude portraits depicting his pre-pubescent ‘muse’ Franzi.

Appropriating Kirchner’s original composition, my painting presents a surface-dense, highly patterned and self-consciously decorative version. It is informed by tapestry designs from later in Kirchner’s career, as much as his expressionist technique. It invites the viewer to look anew at the canon of modernist art and ask who is being represented and for whom.

Natalya Hughes, 2023