Study for Head of Isabel Rawsthorne 1967

Francis Bacon’s ‘Study for Head of Isabel Rawsthorne’ is a visceral portrait that emerges from a murky green ground. You can almost see Bacon wrestling with the image, smearing and pulling the paint as if trying to capture a fleeting expression, a ghost in the machine of representation. I wonder what it was like for Bacon, grappling with the materiality of paint to conjure a likeness, only to then distort it, to push it to the edge of abstraction. Look at that swipe of black that obliterates the eye – it's both violent and tender, a negation and an affirmation of the act of seeing. Bacon reminds us that painting isn't just about depicting reality, but about embodying a feeling, an experience, that's as much about what's hidden as what's revealed. Painting is a conversation, and Bacon, like all great artists, keeps the dialogue alive.