The Five Children 2009

Carmen Delaco’s oil painting, “The Five Children,” is rendered with loose brushstrokes and a muted palette, a somber wash over a stark, difficult subject. I imagine Delaco wrestling with this image, layering paint, scraping back, and building up the surface to convey the vulnerability of these figures. Looking at the brushwork, I see a real empathy, a struggle to represent without exploitation. The paint is applied thinly in some areas, allowing the texture of the canvas to peek through, while in others, it’s thicker, particularly around the faces, as if the artist is trying to flesh them out. The artist's work is in conversation with other painters like Lucian Freud. There is the same commitment to capturing the raw and unvarnished aspects of the human condition. The act of painting itself becomes a means of bearing witness, engaging in a dialogue across time and space with artists who dare to confront difficult subject matter.