Animal Woman 2012

Carmen Delaco made this painting called *Animal Woman* with thick daubs of black and white. Looking at this painting I can feel her wrestling with the figure, as if she’s pulling it out of the darkness. See how the paint is layered so thickly, it almost feels like she's sculpting rather than just painting. The black paint on the right is so dense, it's like a void. The figure emerges from it, a powerful presence. There is a raw, urgent quality to the brushstrokes, like she's trying to capture something fleeting, some truth about the body and the psyche, about the animal and human. This reminds me of artists like de Kooning, who were also trying to capture the dynamism and energy of the human form through gestural abstraction. Ultimately, it’s a testament to the enduring power of painting to capture the complexities of human experience.