CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 6/6/2019

Neither Amazons nor Furies, Margot Bergman's subjects are true anti-heroines

“Monica” (2018) is reproduced from Hatje Cantz’s new monograph on Chicago artist Margot Bergman, whose neo-expressionist portraits of women overpainted on small, found landscape paintings, are becoming increasingly known and collected worldwide. “Bergman’s female subjects are true anti-heroines,” Markus Stegmann writes. “They are refreshing in that there is nothing heroic about them. They are not warlike Amazons, not speeding Furies, and not emancipated ladies in the wake of 1968 (in purely biographical terms, this could be well-suited to the artist). Bergman’s women do not embark on campaigns to shout their opinion to the world angrily… One regularly sees an element of cheery sparkle, even a subtle mockery, and sometimes a concealed frivolous look.”