Penseroso 2018

Luis Álvarez Roure painted this portrait, "Penseroso," with visible brushstrokes and a muted palette, giving it a kind of quiet intensity. Looking at it, I imagine Álvarez Roure in his studio, maybe late in the day, light shifting as he’s building up layers of paint, each stroke a decision, a feeling, a thought made visible. The paint is applied with such directness, especially in the beard, where the strokes are thick and directional, almost like he’s sculpting the form rather than just painting it. There’s a real physicality to the medium here; you can feel the weight and texture of the oil paint. Those strokes, they’re not just descriptive, they’re expressive. It reminds me of other painters who use the materiality of paint to convey emotion, like Auerbach or Kossoff. Artists are always in conversation, aren't they? And painting, it’s a way of thinking, of feeling, of seeing, a form of embodied expression that embraces ambiguity and allows for multiple interpretations.