Billowing, marshmallow-like orange smoke against green, naked female flesh and a lysergic blue sky: there’s little that isn’t arresting in the colour palettes of Judy Chicago’s Immolation, from the 1971-72 Women & Smoke Series. The images saw the artist quite literally playing with fire, having learned the craft of setting off fireworks and tinted smoke bombs from an apprenticeship with a pyrotechnics company. She termed these clouds “atmospheres”, and the Women & Smoke series saw female performers’ bodies painted in bold colours, intermingling with the smoke against an awe-inspiring landscape in which Mother Earth appears to be both the backdrop and star of the show. Chicago has said Immolation was “a reference to sati, the practice where women are pushed into the bonfire in India when their husbands die and are cremated.” The work is on show from 11 May until 10 June at Heist Gallery’s exhibition at Palazzo Benzon, Venice alongside work by artists including Lynda Benglis, Guerrilla Girls and Hamra Abbas.
