Girlfriends 1988

Zoe Lerman made this painting, Girlfriends, sometime around 1988. Look at how she’s used a limited palette, mostly tans and browns, to create these figures. It’s almost monochromatic but not quite. It’s a dance between colors, just like the figures are in a dance together. I love how the paint is applied; you can see the brushstrokes, thick and deliberate. It gives the painting a real sense of texture and movement. The figures are not quite defined. They're more like suggestions of bodies, like ghosts of an image, or maybe they're just barely catching light. See that area around the figure on the right? The way Lerman layers the browns and tans creates depth, but also a sense of mystery. There is something very Toulouse Lautrec about this painting, you know? Both artists capture a certain kind of energy and mood, that’s not quite definable. They give us an experience, not just a picture. Art is like that: an ongoing conversation. It’s up to us to listen.