Nicole Wermers Germany, b. 1971

Working across sculpture, collage and photography, Wermers’ work engages with themes of urban, social space and its psychological impact upon the human psyche. Traditional city structures, everyday objects and modern advertising are consistently referenced throughout her work, although many of her pieces appear at first sight to be grounded in abstraction.

Wermers developed this new series of Reclining Figures for her first solo exhibition in Switzerland, Reclining Fanmail (May – August 2022) at Kunsthaus Glarus. Her first ever figurative sculptures, they are inspired by the classic reclining figure motif which appears consistently throughout the history of art. Wermers has noted that one often encounters the reclining female within urban cityscapes, appearing in many public installations, particularly those by celebrated British artist Henry Moore. She has reflected this motif’s relationship with public space by arranging her sculptures on maintenance carts, relating the working body to typical modern architecture, such as airports, hotels and office buildings.

The sculptural bodies are created by Wermers applying generous amounts of plaster to carved Styrofoam cores, the thick layers creating a coarse surface which also leaves the mark of the maker’s hand. While plaster is traditionally used for sculptural maquettes and studies before they are cast in bronze, it also requires the artist to work quickly, making it a time limiting and deeply laborious material. This mirrors the intensity and time pressures of typical maintenance work, and is personal to Wermers herself, who was employed as a hotel housekeeper in Hamburg whilst studying in the 1990s.

This theme of labour is integral as the prostate nude female figure is consistently referenced in art history as symbolic of ‘the oldest profession.’ Most typically referencing sex work in the form of the courtesan or sex worker, with examples including Édouard Manet’s Olympia, the reclining female nude who holds a direct, provocative gaze is regularly associated with such roles throughout art history. In Wermer’s series, the maintenance carts act as pedestals which uphold the female body, with the Reclining Females holding an elevated eyeline and taking ownership over the viewer and gallery space. Reclaiming self-representation is a theme that is continuing to be examined by contemporary female artists, with Sarah Lucas and Sophie Thun also using sexuality as a tool of subversion, exploring themes of domination and humour not usually addressed in traditional depictions of the female nude. The same can also be seen in Zanele Muholi’s work Bona III, ISGM, Boston (2019) in which the artist toys with notions of gaze, representation and the female nude.