Flowers – Anemones 1901

Olga Boznanska made this painting of anemones without us knowing exactly when, and with what. I love that idea! What has come into being here is a shifting, emerging, dissolving world of dark reds and pinks. I can imagine her, brush in hand, face up close, squinting with one eye closed, trying to capture this sensation of light through colour. She's trying to wrestle with the stuff of perception. The paint here is juicy, worked, thick in places, thin in others. A painter making a painting is in conversation with other painters. There's something of Manet and Fantin-Latour here, but Boznanska has her own language; her own way of seeing. And you can see it in every mark, every gesture. Painting is a form of embodied expression that embraces ambiguity. I love that there are no fixed or definitive readings.