A recurring figure in Lisa Yuskavage’s lush, colorful paintings is a woman, who’s also an artist, standing amid her artwork wearing only a pair of underpants. The art in these images often refers to Yuskavage’s own oeuvre, with motifs that go all the way back to seminal paintings like Rorschach Blot (1995), a sunshine-yellow portrait of a girl with disquieting features. A leading force in the contemporary revival of figurative painting, Yuskavage draws specifically from the Renaissance tradition of the nude, but she doesn’t pose her subjects gracefully or with reverence. When asked why she painted women so provocatively, in the seeming embrace of the male gaze, Yuskavage said, “It’s not about being right. It’s about opening something up that’s wrong.” —Paulina Prosnitz