The Lenna Sidh 2016

Joe Machine made "The Lenna Sidh" using what looks like acrylic paint and a distinct pointillist approach to rendering the body. The artist builds up the form of the central figure by using what looks like lots of small dots of similar colour and tone, creating both a sense of volume and texture. This kind of mark-making reminds us that painting is a process of layering and building, and also of looking closely, and building up the image one piece at a time. Notice the very soft light, created by the artist's restrained colour palette. This gentle tonality is offset by the heavy lines of the surrounding figures, making these secondary figures like a dark frame around the translucent figure. For me, the overall feeling is one of gentle light and quietness, a kind of dreamlike state that reminds me a little of Odilon Redon’s symbolist works. As in his work, there's a sense that we are looking at a world of the imagination rather than a directly observed reality. In art, uncertainty and ambiguity can often be more interesting than clarity.