She Has Arrived 2021

Carrie Graber made this painting, ‘She Has Arrived’, using oil on canvas. The first thing I notice is how smoothly rendered everything is, and the kind of hyper-real quality that gives the painting. Look closely and you can just about make out the brushstrokes, which I love, because they hint at the process, the human element. Then there is the interplay between the pink of the car and the woman's skin, like a dance between form and color. I’m drawn to the area where the shadow falls on the woman's legs. It's painted so subtly, yet it gives the figure a real sense of weight and presence. It’s like Graber is saying, "I see you, and I see the way the light plays on you, and I'm going to capture that." It reminds me a little bit of Alex Katz, in the way it simplifies and abstracts reality, but with its own unique spin. Ultimately, it's a reminder that art is always in conversation, building on what came before, but always finding new ways to see the world.