Two Thugs and a Victim – Victim, from Flying to the Moon 1987

Wanda Koop made this painting, Two Thugs and a Victim – Victim, from Flying to the Moon, using flat, opaque colours to create a bold, graphic image. I see this piece as an act of painting as revelation. The thing that really grabs me is how Koop lays down these blocks of colour, almost like she’s building a puzzle. The paint isn't fussy; it’s direct, confident. The surface is smooth, and there's a real sense of the hand in the making, like you can feel the artist figuring things out as she goes. Look at the face within the face. Is it a mask? Is it a memory? It reminds me of Picasso's masks, not in the visual but in the way it holds so many possible meanings at once. Koop's work is like a conversation between abstraction and figuration. It's an ongoing exploration of what painting can do, and it leaves plenty of room for us to join in.