Memory about adolescence 1974

Mariam Aslamazian made this painting, *Memory about adolescence*, with oils on canvas. I can imagine Aslamazian applying daubs of contrasting color, thick and creamy, to build up these bouquets. A full vase of white, purple, and yellow flowers, with their green foliage, almost tumbles out of the painting with its floral energy. A smaller arrangement sits adjacent, in a patterned plane, while a portrait sits silently looking on. The flowers are really doing it for me, they remind me of Milton Avery, but more saturated. What strikes me most is the yellow, it provides this weird kind of zing. It's amazing how the most subtle decisions can dramatically change the painting’s affect. Painters are always in conversation with one another. It's like a big, ongoing, meta-dialogue. We borrow, steal, and riff off of each other's ideas, and Aslamazian is part of this conversation, too.