Saskia Colwell: Skin on Skin reviewed in Wallpaper*

An arched torso bows towards us from a slender, arrow-slit-sized canvas: the planetary outlines of breasts, taut white skin, the inner press of a belly button, down to the clam-like fray of labial lips. Imperfect Symmetry by London-based artist Saskia Colwell is one in a series of drawings that make up ‘Skin on Skin’, her solo exhibition at Victoria Miro, Venice.

The show’s title is a reference to the artworks' material (charcoal on vellum (animal skin) which has been stretched over board) and subject matter: Colwell’s own body, first photographed and then abstracted through the mark-marking process to variously resemble marble sculpture, anatomical drawings, retro erotic photography. Imperfect Symmetry is among the most explicit images: full frontal, viewed from below, a perspective that in another context might be considered pornographic. Yet the segmentation of the body, floating within black space, has a clinical rather than alluring effect. Colwell seems to draw our attention to skin itself – a continuous surface that wraps around and contains the body; a barrier as well as an erogenous zone.

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Image: Saskia Colwell, The Throne, 2024