This Side of Waking 2016

Joshua Flint made "This Side of Waking" with oil on canvas, and I wonder if this is a nude in a landscape or a figure in an interior, or both? I see a woman walking away from us towards a hazy horizon, but she's also framed by a doorway, and beyond that, another room. It's like two worlds colliding: the intimate space of the body and the open expanse of nature. The colors are muted, like a memory fading at the edges. Look at the vertical drips of paint on the left—they feel like tears, or the residue of something washed away. I love how the brushstrokes are loose and gestural, as if Flint is trying to capture a fleeting moment, a feeling that's just out of reach. It reminds me of Fairfield Porter's domestic scenes, where the everyday becomes something magical. This painting feels like an invitation to wander between dreams and reality, to embrace the ambiguity of existence. And maybe that's what painting is all about—finding the extraordinary in the ordinary, and reminding us that nothing is ever quite as it seems.