The paintings of the American painter Suzannah Sinclair, born in 1979 in Germany due to her father’s US army station and now based in the rural wilderness of Maine, offer an intriguing space between erotic art, fashion illustration and the remembered imagery of a more permissive, tactile past. In these artworks the nude figure is presented with an unusual combination of sensuality and innocence, the kind that rarely gets portrayed and presented just right, the way which David Hamilton or Renoir did it. Although the paintings are explicitly erotic, their atmosphere is rarely aggressive or confrontational. Instead, Sinclair creates a languid, dreamlike world of muted colours, soft contours and intimate poses. The result is an aesthetic that feels distinctly nostalgic: not necessarily a literal reconstruction of the 1970s, but an evocation of its visual vocabulary and cultural mood.
Fig.1 Suzannah Sinclair, Still Crazy, 2009
Fig.2 Suzannah Sinclair, And then I'll be gone, 2008
Fig.3 Suzannah Sinclair, The Odds, 2009
Carefully Blended
There is a striking softness to Sinclair’s handling of the female body. Flesh is painted in warm creams, peaches and pinkish ochres, with shadows carefully blended rather than sharply delineated. The bodies therefore seem almost illuminated from within. In Nowhere, Somewhere, for example, the figure reclining against the rocks is surrounded by a cool, grey landscape, yet her skin possesses a warm, almost sepia glow. The contrast is understated rather than dramatic. Her body seems to belong to the landscape, merging with its pale, weathered surfaces. This creates an eroticism based less on display than on atmosphere: the viewer is invited into a private, suspended moment.
Fig.4 Suzannah Sinclair, Becoming visible, 2008
Fig.5 Suzannah Sinclar, Nowhere, Somewhere, 2010
The Odds
That softness is central to the paintings’ 1970s quality. Sinclair’s palette recalls the faded warmth of analogue photography, old fashion magazines and printed illustrations from the period. Her colours are never excessively saturated. Instead, there are dusty oranges, tobacco browns, faded pinks, cream, mauve and olive green. Even the more colourful paintings, such as the one titled ‘The Odds’ seen in Fig.3., with its feathers, hats and decorative interior, avoids the glossy perfection associated with contemporary commercial imagery. Its colours seem slightly weathered, as though the image has survived from another decade.
Fig.6 Suzannah Sinclar, Lazy, 2018
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A great inspiration of Sinclair were the Playboy centrefolds from the 1960s and 1970s. Click HERE for an article about Playboy and other adult magazines or HERE for the soft eroticism of David Hamilton’s 1970s photography.
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