Floral Eyes 1966

In 'Floral Eyes', Eileen Agar uses bright blues, oranges, and greens to build an enigmatic, almost totem-like face. You can see the flat planes of colour colliding, pushing forward, and receding. It’s like she's conjuring a face out of thin air! I can imagine Agar, standing before the canvas, brush in hand, layering shapes and colours until a figure starts to emerge. She’s probably thinking about Picasso, or maybe even ancient Cycladic sculpture; that formal economy, but with a totally playful spirit. There’s a real tension between the flatness of the picture plane and the illusion of depth created by those eyes, those flowers. It's like she's planting a seed that sprouts in our imagination. Agar seems to be saying that painting is about discovery, about finding new ways to see, and isn’t that the best thing? We’re all just trying to figure it out together anyway.