Rebecca Warren History and His Art Work at the Saatchi-gallery

Rebecca Warren's art likewise unites popular and high culture, feministic and psychological debate. All this is not primarily some ironic statement or the offended criticism fired by the traditional male portrayal of the female body. Warren is not actually concerned with these male artists as such, seeking rather to position herself directly as the next in the traditional lineage - maybe the way Kathryn Bigelow can do a Hollywood thriller and at the same time intelligently misrepresent male clichés. Her large "women" seem to confidently and brazenly flaunt the insignia of their desirability. Her work is akin to an exciting thriller on the topics of figurative portrayal, representation and fiction.Rebecca Warren sees her collages as "magical objects". Like her crudely made figurines they also evoke a sense of the ever present doubtful authenticity of the artist's studio. One believes one is in the studio or almost sensing the presence of the "model" in the room, but all of this is a more fictional, maybe virtual situation, a dense universe of possibilities, which composes itself for the purpose of transitory, continuously regenerating contents.

Rebecca Warren's sculptures bring a whole new meaning to the term "Earth Mother". Her women are like humungous primal fertility totems for the urban tribes of today. Big boobs, and big butts, dread locks and mini-skirts: being a babe is just an Amazonian side-effect of their self-control and empowerment.Larger than life, Warren's sculptures are girl-next-door superheroes: barbaric and strong, protecting and kind, energetic and bold: icons of the ideal 'every woman' taken to the extreme.Figures of fantasy emulation, Warren's sculptures make successes of their 'short-comings': malformed hands, or slight weight problem are things to be celebrated; and their shoes are always amazing. Warren's women are ravishing just the way they are. If their confident, over-the-top sexuality seems a little dirty, that's because it is -- literally. They're entirely made of clay.

Inventing a race of superwomen is a process of immediacy. Starting with a skeletal support structure, Warren builds up her sculptures with an almost impressionistic fervour, physically beating and shaping mounds of clay into an extension of her imagination, working against the clock before the material hardens.From the start, Warren's sculptures are designed for speed. Mounted on castered boards, Warren's uber-frauen glide like primadonnas, skate like perennial students, and race like businesswomen.It's an aesthetic reminiscent of artists such as Rodin and Boccioni. But with a contemporary twist: Their caricaturish portrayals owe as much to comic book legends such as Robert Crumb and those naughty 70s Penthouse cartoons.Warren plays with these ideals of male fantasy and representation, and re-incorporates their exaggeration and slap&tickle humour into a perversion and triumph all her own.Their plinths are integral extensions of their personalities -- as well as being an excellent ergonomic device for moving them about her studio. Everything about her work reveals, and draws the viewer into, the process of making.