Boxing Match 1980

LeRoy Neiman made this painting called "Boxing Match" with a heck of a lot of energy, you can almost feel him having a front-row seat. The whole scene is captured with these broad strokes of color, like the painting itself is caught up in the frenzy of the fight. Neiman doesn’t give us every detail, but it feels like he’s inviting us to fill in the blanks and get into the ring with him. I bet he was thinking about how to capture not just the look of boxing, but the raw feeling of it, the adrenaline, the tension, the spectacle! Look how the yellow splashes above the ring. It’s as if the energy of the match is too big to be contained. It reminds me of other artists, like some of the Italian Futurists, who tried to paint movement and speed. All these artists are talking to each other across time! Neiman’s work embraces the unpredictable and messy aspects of painting and that reminds me that art is not about perfect representation, but expression.