Profiles of a Man and Woman 1983

Here we have Patrick Nagel’s print, Profiles of a Man and Woman. It’s all cool blues and blacks and crisp lines, so you can already tell that the artist isn’t messing around. Looking at the perfect line of the woman’s nose, I’m imagining Nagel trying to strip painting down to its bare essentials. It’s almost as if he’s saying, “What if I could remove all the mess, all the emotion, and just show you the surface?” Which is, in itself, very emotional! Nagel’s style reminds me of some other artists that used hard edges such as Alex Katz. They are all in a conversation about representation, and flatness. Painting doesn’t have to trick you into seeing depth. It can be frank, and that choice itself brings a whole new world of seeing and thinking into being.