Home 2010

Bo Bartlett painted this intriguing scene, "Home," sometime after he was born in 1955. The muted color palette – grays and browns with a touch of muted green – it's like memory itself, filtered and softened. Looking at the woman standing there, so sure of herself, I'm drawn to the way the paint describes the fabric of her skirt. You can almost feel the texture. The brushstrokes are delicate but deliberate, each one adding to the sense of form and weight. And then there's the figure crawling on the lawn, the shoes discarded by the steps, the still figure laying prone in the grass: what’s the story here? The surface is smooth, almost porcelain-like, which lends it a kind of dreamlike quality, as if it's all happening just out of reach. This work reminds me of Edward Hopper; both artists capture a sense of quiet unease, a feeling that something unspoken is lurking beneath the surface of everyday life. Art is never about answers, it’s about the questions that keep us looking.