Interior with water lilies 1991

Roy Lichtenstein painted this large-scale Interior with Water Lilies sometime before he died in 1997. The colors are classic Lichtenstein: bold, flat, and graphic, using a primary palette that screams Pop Art. The blue and white diagonal stripes dominate, creating a kind of dizzying wallpaper effect that I just love. I can imagine him in his studio, carefully plotting out each line and dot. He was probably thinking about how to flatten everything out, how to take the three-dimensional world and turn it into this cool, almost cartoon-like image. Look at how he's referenced Monet’s water lilies in the framed picture on the left – it's like he’s saying, “Okay, Impressionism, I see you, and I’m going to give you a modern, mass-produced twist.” It’s funny, right? Because it shows how artists are always in conversation with each other, riffing on the past, and pushing things forward. Ultimately, for me, painting is about embracing the back-and-forth, it is the push and pull between artists, and the sheer joy of making something new out of something old.