Artist in Focus: Somaya Critchlow
Londoner Somaya Critchlow is no stranger to Dulwich Picture Gallery. From a young age she frequented the Gallery, familiarising herself with our Collection and building admiration for the powerful storytelling and groundbreaking painting techniques of historic artists.
When attending art school Critchlow encountered the world of modern and contemporary art, but her adoration for history paintings prevailed. ‘It’s just not my cup of tea’, she recently told the New York Times in reference to the modernist Blue Nudes of Matisse. She continued to feed her obsession with painters, such as the sixteenth-century Venice-based artist Titian and his retellings of Greek and Roman myths.
Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd.
Intimate depictions of imagined people, pieced together from a patchwork of cultural references, form the basis of Critchlow’s work. Each work is soft and dreamlike in its application of paint but punchy in its depiction of the unclothed, staring female form. Taking cues from contemporary cinema and soft pornography to Renaissance painting and classical sculpture, Critchlow is an artist whose work transcends the barriers of time. At the heart of her practice lies a deep respect for the techniques and storytelling of those who came before her.
Critchlow has created six new paintings along with drawings and sketches for The Chamber, where they hang alongside works from our Collection. Learn more below:
A collection for artists
Two years before Dulwich Picture Gallery first opened to the public in 1817, artists were given special access to copy from our Collection. Since then, artists including Vincent van Gogh and Vanessa Bell have visited the Gallery – their names recorded in our historic visitor books. Continuing this tradition of over two centuries, Critchlow regularly visited the Gallery and made sketches and drawings of our paintings in graphite and ink, forming an important part of her preparations for The Chamber.
A true love of painting
Have you ever come across words such as sfumato, chiaroscuro or scumble? They are all technical words used to describe ways of applying oil paint, and how to use light and colour in dramatic ways. Through spending concentrated time with our Collection, Critchlow was able to discover what these terms really involved.
Fixated on the innate qualities of paint, Critchlow spent hours researching the palettes of Titian, Diego Velázquez (1599-1660) and Joshua Reynolds (1723-92) to create the earthy yet ethereal lustre that epitomises her work.
After Titian, Europa and the Bull, 17th century, Oil on canvas, Bourgeois Bequest, 1811, DPG273.
A contemporary twist
Peter Lely’s Nymphs by a Fountain (c.1650) was a key reference point, and Critchlow’s sketch of it is displayed in The Chamber. It features five sleeping nudes, all unaware they are being looked upon. The pose of the elusive foreground figure, viewed from behind, is re-imagined by Critchlow in Twisted Figure (2024). Titian’s Venus and Adonis was another source, in which Venus’ twisting body was intended to titillate its Renaissance onlookers.
Peter Lely, Nymphs by a Fountain, c.1650, Oil on canvas, Fairfax Murray Gift, 1911, DPG555.
Though portrayed from behind, the woman in Twisted Figure is not unaware of the viewer’s stare, but instead turns to meet their gaze. The frequent passivity of the classical nude is challenged by this look: both a deflection and an invitation.
Critchlow works her re-imagined classical nudes into modern-day settings, in chambers that feature antique furniture, the figures adorned in modern lingerie and heels.
Somaya Critchlow, Twisted Figure, 2024, Oil on canvas, Courtesy of the artist, Maximillian William, London, and Dulwich Picture Gallery. Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd.
Questions of power
One of the biggest sources of inspiration for Critchlow was Angela Carter’s 1979 book, The Bloody Chamber. Our current display features Critchlow’s very own copy. The Bloody Chamber offers feminist retellings of age-old fairy tales which upturn traditional power structures.
Critchlow continues this thread and considers how the stories told in historic paintings – drawn from religion, literature, history, mythology and the imagination – also often harbour complex power dynamics. Her own figures are ambiguous in the power that they hold, blurring the boundaries between sharing their stories and maintaining their distance.
Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd.
Somaya Critchlow: The Chamber is part of our ‘Unlocking Paintings’ series – a series of displays that presents new perspectives on the Gallery’s collection, inviting artists and thinkers to interpret historic themes for contemporary audiences.
View it now as part of your general admission ticket. On until 20 July 2025.
Charlotte Russell is a culture writer and digital content producer.