Marilyn
Minter
Minter's boundary-pushing art has established her presence in the Contemporary Art scene, known for her exploration of beauty, sexuality, and the fashion industry. If you're looking for Marilyn Minter original prints and editions for sale or would like to sell, request a complimentary valuation and browse our network's most in-demand works.
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Biography
Marilyn Minter emerged as a significant voice in the art world during the 1980s, gaining recognition for her confronting examination of societal beauty standards and consumer culture. Born in Shreveport, Louisiana, Minter's early experiences shaped her artistic vision, leading her to create works that critically examine glamour and desire.
Minter's artistic journey began at the University of Florida, where she honed her skills before studying at Syracuse University for her master's degree. Her early black-and-white photographs of her mother, which depicted a complex and often unsettling domestic reality, set the stage for her later explorations of humanity’s obsession with beauty.
Throughout her career, Minter has blended painting, photography, and video to create her signature hyperrealistic style. Her work often features close-up, visceral depictions of the human body, particularly focusing on mouths, feet, and eyes, adorned with glitter, beads of sweat, or smeared makeup.
Minter's breakthrough came in 1990 with her Food Porn series, which featured close-up images of food preparation that mimicked the aesthetics of pornography with its fleshly and evocative imagery.
Through the 1990s and 2000s, Minter's work evolved to focus more explicitly on fashion and cosmetics. Her large-scale enamel on metal paintings, such as Dirty Heel (2008) and Orange Crush (2009), became iconic representations of her style. These works, often based on her own photographs, simultaneously showcase the allure and costs of the beauty industry.
Minter's inclusion in the 2006 Whitney Biennial marked a milestone in her career. For this event, she created a series of billboards featuring close-up images of feet in bejewelled high heels splashing in dirty puddles, further cementing her reputation for depicting the commodification of the body.
In 2009, Minter’s Green Pink Caviar, her first venture into video, was prominently displayed on digital billboards in Times Square before being acquired by the Museum of Modern Art. The video, shot with macro lenses, captures tongues smearing vibrant colours across a glass surface. Minter uses this tactile, intimate imagery to explore themes central to her work, such as desire, consumption, and the blurred line between beauty and the grotesque.