They Saw Through 2021

Lanise Howard painted this portrait of two figures locked in an unspoken moment. The medium feels like oil, and the technique she’s chosen is to create a very smooth surface. I can imagine Howard mixing the colours on her palette; she looks to have used a lot of blues, oranges, and yellows. You can see the butterfly motif repeated across the image, maybe it’s a symbol of the painting process itself, a moment of seeing. I wonder if the painting process allowed her to capture the emotional intensity of the moment, or the intimacy of the two figures. I like to think about what an artist wants a painting to *do.* It can be really hard to paint people - you can see too much. And what’s interesting here is how she’s held back, but also put a great deal of energy into it. It’s so great when painters today can look at all the figurative painting of the past and find something new to add to the conversation.