Anders Zorn 2017

Andrey Allakhverdov painted "Anders Zorn," sometime around now, with a clear sense of artmaking as a process. The whole painting is alive with these little brushstrokes, a kind of dabbing and daubing that is both precise and somehow haphazard. Looking closely at the man’s moustache, you can see how the color shifts and changes, these subtle variations in hue that bring it to life. It's not just brown, it’s a whole range of browns, yellows, and even a touch of red. The paint is applied with such a loose hand, but it all comes together to create this sense of form and depth. The way the brushstrokes follow the shape of the moustache, how they curve and twist, is kind of amazing. It reminds me a little of Fairfield Porter, who also had this way of capturing the everyday with such an open and honest eye. You can see how art is an ongoing conversation, a back-and-forth of ideas across time. It's a reminder that art is never really finished, it's always in process.