Madsen had a lot of learning experiences when she was looking for her artistic path. “When I joined the program, I didn’t have a strong painted rib,” Mason said. “I ended up painting only in the first year of my plan because I only understood the principles taught in the drawing class. I stayed away from painting.”
When she started painting, Madsen moved from using photographic references and imaginary spaces and characters in her mind. “This is the stylistic language that comes out of it,” she said. “It’s the natural way I draw it.”
Ultimately, Madson’s character stays away from Shortreyism. Their proportions may be unusual – long fingers have become one of the icons of the artist – they often twist and extend on the canvas. These choices reflect the theme Madsen dealt with in his work. Long fingers can represent idealized femininity. The way the role is positioned can illustrate the environment of childhood memory, growth and physical growth. “Obviously, they are adults in spaces that are usually reserved for children,” she said. “When I think of that period of my life, then I suddenly realized my body in different ways, such as my body’s presence in space, or in some cases the presence of others.”
She added: “In many of the works I’m trying to amplify this, plant, spill, stretch and expand ideas.”
This is a key part of the Madsen process. All her paintings begin with painting, and she often repeats them until a scene visually reflects the emotions that inspired the experience of the work. “I’m going to recreate it over and over to push how the body is expanded and positioned in the composition,” she said of the drawing.
That’s what I’m interested in these works – more confusion, so you have to sit at work and figure out more about what’s going on. ”
Taking “two can be played” as an example, how to deform the image in the form of repeated paintings. In the last painting, two characters crawl in the test tube as if they were competing. One character crawls over another character and presses another character to the other side. “I specialize in women who exist in these spaces and compete with each other,” Madsen said. “I’ve been thinking about my inner disgust and the thoughts of victims and perpetrators surrounding certain concepts of misogyny.”
Initially, Madsen considered including three characters in the painting. “I want it to be both familiar and a little real, but there are spatial anomalies (none of these differences are different),” she said. “I guess when I do the drawings, the three numbers feel too much, and the two numbers feel right.”
When Madsen perfected her technical process, she also rethinked her paintings. “I wanted to do a personal job, but I had a lot of wrong starts,” she said. She initially thought that more general topics would attract a larger audience. “What I really need is to be more specific about my experience in the details of my work,” she said.
She incorporates very personal details into the painting. The recurring main character of Madsen has keratosis Pilaris, a disease that shows small bumps on the hair follicles. “I was really bad when I was a kid,” Mason said. “I still have.”
The clothes the character wears in paintings are usually based on her own wardrobe and hand-dropped clothes that fall into the home. During the interview, she pointed out a painting in the studio, pointing out the snow pants the character wore through her family. “That’s the reference to the photo I brought,” she said. “I have an older sister wearing that snow suit.”
Similarly, in “Watch Your Steps”, two feet stand on the carpet, based on a carpet used to lie on the basement of the Madsen family home.
Madsen’s work continues to evolve as she prepares for her own personal performance. From a narrative perspective, she said the main characters in her paintings played a more active role in the evolving story.
From a technical perspective, Madsen’s works are playing the role of color and lighting. “I’m very interested in how light and color can help increase the particularity of time and place,” she said, referring to the work of “playing the game” where her character sits on a school desk and lies on it. There she found the contrast between the “cold table” and the “warm light” filtered into the classroom. These details not only add particularity; Madson said they also help increase ambiguity. “That’s what I’m interested in these works – more confusion, so you have to sit at work and figure out more about what’s going on.” **
This article appears in Hi-Fructose Issue 63. Get the full text and release here.
