Posing Movie Star Holding on for Freedom 1991

Thornton Dial made this drawing, Posing Movie Star Holding on for Freedom, on paper with watercolor, and you can see the hand of the artist in the bleeds and blurs of the colour washes. Dial’s drawing has this wonderful looseness, a kind of playful searching. I can imagine him thinking about how the body can be a site for freedom, as well as how the body is perceived through the distorted lens of fame, and the cinema screen. The woman is composed of curved lines of red and pink which give her an octopus-like appearance, making it seem as though she is reaching for something just out of her grasp. These types of images feel raw and immediate, and they remind me that painting is about feeling one’s way through, about staying open to surprise and chance. So much of painting is about being in dialogue with other artists and seeing how they have tackled similar problems. It’s a conversation across time, where we inspire and challenge each other to see the world in new ways.