A Woman's Shadow 1983

Balcomb Greene, painted this artwork, A Woman’s Shadow, with oil on canvas. Look at those delicate pinks, blues, and browns mingling together. I see a scene emerging, maybe a beach, with figures painted in an almost dreamlike state. The way the paint is applied, thinly, and the shapes are not clearly defined, makes me think about the act of remembering. Have you ever tried to catch a memory, how it slips through your fingers? Greene is doing that here, I think. He is trying to capture something elusive, something that is there and then gone, like a shadow. I imagine him, mixing those muted colors, trying to get the right tone to capture that feeling of being on the edge of something, not quite knowing what it is. It reminds me of other painters like Fairfield Porter, who also found beauty in the everyday, but with a touch of mystery. That is what painters do—we are all in a constant conversation, reacting, responding, and pushing each other to see the world in new ways.