Children With no Name V 2009

Editor: "Children With no Name V," created in 2009 by Carmen Delaco using oil and acrylic paint... it’s haunting, isn’t it? The brushstrokes are so expressive, almost frantic. What’s your interpretation of this piece? Curator: It’s a face emerging from a storm of feelings, isn’t it? Delaco conjures the sensation of lost identity, or maybe identities still in formation. I love how the impasto technique builds up the surface, those thick globs of paint – like the raw emotion itself is tangible, threatening to spill off the canvas. Does that emotional intensity resonate with you? Editor: Absolutely! It feels like…a memory struggling to surface. The white impasto around the head almost looks like erasure, or maybe a halo. I wonder about the title, too - "Children With no Name"... it's pretty direct. Curator: Direct, but open to interpretation. Is it a comment on societal anonymity, on lost childhoods? The absence of a name forces us to see the essential humanity in the figure. It strips away preconceived notions and confronts us with a pure, unadulterated face. I feel echoes of Francis Bacon here. The distortions invite an emotional reading. Editor: That’s a really interesting comparison. I definitely see that visceral quality. The vulnerability is almost overwhelming. It really underscores how identity is often constructed, rather than inherent. Curator: Exactly! And perhaps the artist is suggesting we all have, at some point, felt nameless, undefined. It invites a certain empathy. Something universal in this very particular child. It is not, simply a portrait. We bring so much to the painting and how it lands in us! Editor: This was such an intriguing discussion. I now see a far deeper layer of the artist's intentions and it makes the work more potent for me. Thanks for shedding new light on it. Curator: My pleasure! These conversations are vital. Each encounter is so singular... Isn’t it marvelous what can occur when the paint still wet connects with what's moist in ourselves.