Lady Reading 1988

Maria Bozoky’s 'Lady Reading' is made using paint and ink, on paper. Just look at the green in the background, and the loose dark marks that make up the subject’s hair. You can see Bozoky working things out, correcting, thinking through the brush. I know that kind of touch—the back and forth, the layering and scraping. You can imagine her searching to find just the right expression, a balance between showing us the figure but also concealing something, too. What is it like, I wonder, to build an image of somebody with just some lines and blotches? A dab here, a stroke there. The process becomes a kind of translation, an act of empathy. You can see the artist's hand—how she feels the weight of the brush, and how she lays down each mark with intention. It’s a kind of dance—a conversation between medium, artist, and subject. Each mark builds upon the last, creating something new. And that's what painting is—an ongoing conversation, a lineage of makers, each inspiring and challenging the last.