Female Dancers 1936

George Bouzianis painted these 'Female Dancers’ sometime in the first half of the twentieth century, using oils on canvas. I can imagine Bouzianis wrestling with this painting, the ghostly figures emerging from the dark ground, one brushstroke at a time. It’s pretty clear that he was looking at other artists. He’s internalized the lessons of art history and is using it to figure out his own way of seeing. The colours here are muted, almost ghostly, and the brushstrokes are thick and expressive. The dancers seem to float in a dark, undefined space, their bodies formed from swirling, textured marks. There is a kind of tension between representation and abstraction. It makes me think of the way we’re all in dialogue with each other, building on what came before, arguing with it, and trying to find our own voice in the process. Bouzianis reminds us that painting is a conversation across time.