Bulto (San Acacio) 1938

Eldora Lorenzini made this watercolor painting, Bulto (San Acacio), and you can see she's really feeling the materiality of paint. There’s a looseness to the way she's working, an improvisational feel, like she's letting the medium do its thing and just guiding it along. Check out how the paint seems to both describe the figures and flatten them. The texture almost vibrates, doesn’t it? There are these repeated strokes that give everything a kind of visual hum. Look at the cross. It's solid, but she gives it these pink edges so it looks like it's almost glowing, or maybe fading away. It's not quite photorealistic, but it captures the essence of the scene. This piece reminds me a little of Marsden Hartley. Both artists share this raw, honest approach, a real sensitivity to the spiritual, but in a very grounded, material way. It is this kind of process that encourages us to really look, and look again, and find something new each time.