Book excerpt: A new focus on the sublime landscapes in Lisa Yuskavage's voluptuous figure paintings Though she is arguably best known for the voluptuous female nudes that populate her paintings, Lisa Yuskavage's work is just as focused on the ethereal settings in which these subjects appear. Yuskavage creates finely detailed landscapes that blur the line between the fantastical and the familiar, melding abstraction with realism to depict self-contained worlds. These outdoor scenes defy conventions of landscape painting with surreal color palettes of lush greens and delicate pinks, cast in a gauzy light quality that highlights the almost magical nature of her paintings. Published in conjunction with a joint exhibition between the Aspen Art Museum in Colorado and the Baltimore Museum of Art in Maryland, this volume includes color reproductions of Yuskavage's paintings and watercolors from the early 1990s to the present, as well as an interview between Yuskavage and fellow artist Mary Weatherford. Based in New York City, American artist Lisa Yuskavage(born 1962) received her MFA from the Yale School of Art in 1986. In the years since, her signature style of figure painting has developed something of a cult following for its attention to art historical tradition and a decidedly contemporary, pop culture-based approach to the representation of the female form. Her work has been in solo exhibitions around the world. Yuskavage is represented by David Zwirner.