Carved Wooden Indian c. 1938

Verna Tallman rendered this Carved Wooden Indian out of paint, sometime during her lifetime. Isn’t that fascinating? There’s something really alchemical about taking a flat medium like paint and conjuring the three-dimensional form of a carved sculpture. It’s like an act of visual ventriloquism. Look closely, and you’ll see the paint isn’t just laid on, it's built up in layers, mimicking the textures of wood, the play of light on a carved surface. The color palette is earthy, a mix of browns and golds, giving it a sense of age, like a treasured artifact. My eye keeps going to the figure's face. The planes are rendered with a kind of loving attention, each ridge and hollow carefully considered. There's a depth of character there that feels so tender and human. This work reminds me of Marsden Hartley. Like Hartley, Tallman is concerned with what it means to represent the cultural emblems of a particular place and time. Art's always in conversation with itself, right?