Nude 1984

Here's Carlos Alonso's 'Nude', made using printmaking techniques. The artwork uses the nude figure as a way to explore form and narrative. Just imagine Alonso in his studio, wrestling with the composition. Look how he’s built up this bed of bright flowers. It feels almost as if the figure is erupting from a garden. Those bold outlines of the body, right? They're like the scaffolding of feeling, raw and direct. It makes me think about the way we use line to capture the essence of something, a gesture, a moment, a mood. It reminds me a little of Matisse, the way he could say so much with so little, that economy of line. These artists are all in conversation, you know? Each one responding to what came before, pushing it, pulling it, turning it inside out. Painting doesn't have to be about answers. It can be a way of looking, a way of feeling, a way of just being in the world.