Nuri 2017

Soey Milk made 'Nuri' as an oil on canvas, and what grabs me first is the way she’s let the paint drip and run. It’s like she’s inviting the chaos in, right? That’s the process talking, the conversation between artist and medium. Up close, the texture's pretty amazing. The mix of thin washes with these gloppy bits – it’s all so tactile. There's a dark, almost gothic swirl of paint that anchors the composition, and then these really precise, delicate floral motifs dancing around it. Those white daisy-like shapes, so crisp against the blurry background, give the painting some much-needed snap. Milk's work reminds me a bit of Jenny Saville, that same willingness to push figuration to the edge of abstraction, to let the paint do its thing. And like Saville, she knows that beauty lies in the broken places, in the unresolved tensions. Art isn't about answers, it's about asking the right questions.