Joan Semmel’s Paintings Are Beautifully Disturbing

Joan Semmel’s Paintings Are Beautifully Disturbing

Joan Semmel’s paintings of contorted women — sometimes realist, sometimes surreal or abstracted — are mesmerizing and beautiful, but they are also disturbing. When her work is framed as such, the focus is typically shifted to the viewer: It unsettles because we’re used to media depictions of young, taut bodies, or it forces us to confront our own relationship with beauty standards and aging. I think that flattens her work. These paintings are fa…