Reclining Nude with Blue Eyes 1936

Henri Matisse painted Reclining Nude with Blue Eyes, likely in oil on canvas; you can imagine him working, building up the composition—those bold, almost arbitrary black lines, the flesh a pale terracotta against the vivid colours all around. I wonder what Matisse was thinking about when he made this picture? You know, that thing where you try to conjure someone’s presence from the traces they leave behind. I’m really drawn to those white strokes, dashed off almost like a signature, on the red ground beneath her – they're so free, so casual. There's a real conversation happening between surface and depth; between the flatness of the picture plane and the illusion of space. Matisse has always been a point of reference for so many artists, including me. I find myself returning to his work because he embraces ambiguity and uncertainty. It’s this openness that allows his paintings to keep shifting and changing in my mind’s eye.