Smoke and Mirrors: Lisa Brice at the Hayward
In Smoke and Mirrors, South African painter Lisa Brice transforms the Hayward Gallery Project Space into a luminous sanctuary of subverted art history. Best known for her striking use of vivid cobalt blue monochrome and thin, translucent washes, Brice confronts centuries of the male gaze in Western painting with quiet authority and fierce painterly intelligence.
Throughout art history—from Degas’ vulnerable bathers to Manet’s detached barmaids and Picasso’s fragmented demoiselles—the female model has frequently been rendered passive, posed for the pleasure of the male artist and viewer. Brice turns this dynamic on its head. Her figures, rendered in electric shades of intense Prussian and cobalt blue, inhabit their spaces with complete autonomy. They smoke cigarettes, peer back into mirrors, adjust their hair, and construct their own environments without concern for external approval.
“Brice does not merely critique the history of painting; she reclaims its materials, replacing objectification with self-possession and atmospheric mystery.”
The exhibition showcases large-scale canvases alongside intimate gouache studies. The choice of blue is far from decorative: it functions like twilight or photographic cyanotype, stripping away skin tones to emphasize posture, gesture, and presence. In several works, mirrors do not reflect a passive viewer, but reflect the model looking back at her own canvas, effectively turning the artist-model dichotomy inside out.
The title Smoke and Mirrors speaks directly to the illusions embedded in canonical European art. By dismantling these illusions through fluid brushwork and atmospheric depth, Lisa Brice delivers a compelling statement on identity, power, and the continuing evolution of figurative painting.
Originally published in Felix.