Three figures 1939

Conroy Maddox made these three figures with paint and pencil, at some point in the twentieth century. There’s a lot of layering in this piece, even though the paint itself looks quite thin, almost like gouache. But it's the pencil that does some of the real work here, building up the background and also outlining the shapes of these figures. I mean, are they figures? They could just as easily be thoughts or feelings, or maybe some kind of dream logic made visible. Look how the pencil marks are scrubbed into the paper, kind of tentative and smudgy. It's like Maddox is feeling his way through the image, letting it emerge bit by bit. The colours are bright and playful, but they're also somehow melancholic, especially when you see them next to the grey pencil. It reminds me of a strange dance or maybe a conversation that’s just out of reach, like something by Max Ernst, but weirder and more personal.