Penitente Santo Entierro or (Saint in Earth) 1937

Eldora Lorenzini made this watercolour and graphite drawing, ‘Penitente Santo Entierro’ sometime before 1993, with a precise hand, focused on documenting the scene before her. It’s all about process; she’s not just painting a picture, she’s recording information. Look at the materiality, the chalky graphite interacting with the paper. The pink patterned sheet beneath the figure is almost a Pop-Art moment, juxtaposed with the horror of the scene. It feels so fragile. The figure itself is rendered with such care. The artist is showing us the wounds, but also the humanity of the figure. The lines defining the body are delicate, almost hesitant. You can sense the artist’s presence, bearing witness to something deeply unsettling. It reminds me a little of some of Philip Guston’s later paintings, with their clunky forms and raw emotion. Art is so often a way of grappling with the difficult stuff, turning it into something we can look at, think about, and maybe even understand.