Two Women 1986

Clementine Hunter made "Two Women" with paint on canvas, and what strikes me is the directness, the immediacy of her vision. Look at how she's built up the scene, the buildings, the two women themselves, with these confident strokes of color. I bet it was joyful to put the paint to canvas! It's not about getting everything "right," it's about feeling, seeing, and remembering. There’s a looseness, where everything has its own space, breathing. I can imagine Hunter stepping back, squinting, maybe tilting her head, adding a dab of red here, a stroke of green there, making it all sing. This painting reminds me that art isn’t about perfection; it’s about presence, about the unique way an artist sees the world. I see some similarity with Horace Pippin's work, that same commitment to memory, storytelling, and a down-to-earth, unaffected approach. It’s like they’re both saying, "This is what I saw, this is what I felt, take it or leave it."