Untitled (Woman at Work) 1958

This is M.F. Husain’s, ‘Untitled (Woman at Work)’ a painting of a woman made with oil paint, somewhere in the 20th or 21st century. Husain’s marks are so straightforward, you can feel him making the painting! I love how he's used the paint, applying the color in flat, confident sections to build up this woman and the bird perched on her foot. There’s so little fussy detail. The way he's described her face with just a few dark lines, it’s like a drawing in paint. The whole painting has this immediacy, this sense of being in the moment. Look at the patch of dark blue behind her head, it’s almost like he’s scrubbed it on, and then the lighter greys of her clothing in contrast. It’s all about the surface. Husain reminds me of Jacob Lawrence, both so direct, so sure in their work. It makes you think about art as a conversation across cultures, and of art as a continuous, evolving thing.