World War II (Vanitas) 1977

Audrey Flack made this photo realist painting, World War II (Vanitas), with oil and acrylic, and it's just bursting with color and symbolic imagery. This is so different from my usual abstract, process-based approach to painting. But look at the creamy, almost edible texture of the paint on the pastries, the way the colors pop and vibrate against each other. The hyper-realism of the butterfly sitting on the teacup is so convincing. The textures of the historical photographs that sit as the background to the still life are created with such different brushwork from the very smooth rendering of the rose in the bottom corner, or the pear that sits to the left, creating an interesting juxtaposition. There's a Baroque sensibility to this painting, a nod to the traditional vanitas paintings of the past, but with a contemporary twist, and a powerful message about the transience of life and the horrors of war. It reminds me a little of Gerhard Richter's paintings, in the way it incorporates photographic imagery into a painterly composition, blurring the lines between reality and representation.