Inside, Outside 1980

Francesco Clemente made this watercolor, Inside, Outside, on handmade paper, and it feels like he used big, soft brushes loaded with thinned-down pigment. I can imagine him working fast, like a sketch. This piece is constructed like a triptych, where each panel shows a different outside and inside. On the left there is a brooding landscape, and on the right a complementary rendering of a figure in a field. But it's the centre panel that really grabs me. We are presented with a man whose distorted body almost seems to mirror the two landscapes, bringing them together into one body. He's being touched by two hands coming from both sides, pulling him out of shape. I wonder, is Clemente thinking about the way our bodies can sometimes feel like a landscape? Clemente invites us into a space of ambiguity, where nothing is quite fixed. His paintings make me feel like I'm not alone in the struggle to make sense of things. It's that vulnerability that makes his work so compelling, reminding us that we are all connected in this ongoing artistic conversation.