Judie Bamber’s paintings, watercolors, and graphite drawings attempt to give voice to female pleasure, as well as grapple with her own family history. In a recent series, Bamber imagines the mother she never knew in a set of intimate images based on snapshots given to her by her father, who also served as the focus of an earlier series. In a suite of untitled works from the mid-1990s, Bamber painted photorealistic “portraits” of vaginas in extreme close-up and detail. The disembodied and highly confrontational genitalia play off her earlier public installation piece Tunnel of Love (1993), a plastic vagina sex toy, displayed on a satin-draped pedestal, that would periodically illuminate, giggle, and say “I love you” to passersby on Hollywood Boulevard.
Judie Bamber’s paintings, watercolors, and graphite drawings attempt to give voice to female pleasure, as well as grapple with her own family history. In a recent series, Bamber imagines the mother she never knew in a set of intimate images based on snapshots given to her by her father, who also served as the focus of an earlier series. In a suite of untitled works from the mid-1990s, Bamber painted photorealistic “portraits” of vaginas in extreme close-up and detail. The disembodied and highly confrontational genitalia play off her earlier public installation piece Tunnel of Love (1993), a plastic vagina sex toy, displayed on a satin-draped pedestal, that would periodically illuminate, giggle, and say “I love you” to passersby on Hollywood Boulevard.