Hawthorn 2021

Owen Gent made this painting, Hawthorn, sometime in the 20th century, and right away what grabs me is the way those colours feel like they're breathing, like they're alive. There's a real materiality to the thing, where the surface seems built up, like layers of feeling. Is it gouache, or maybe acrylic? Whatever it is, there's a lusciousness to how the colours blend and bleed into each other. Look at that shadowy figure in the foreground. It's like a stain, a mark left behind by some unseen force. The edges aren't clean, they're fuzzy and indistinct, as though the figure is dissolving into the very ground it lies upon. It reminds me of the psychological landscapes of someone like Edvard Munch, but with a contemporary spin. It's the kind of image that stays with you, haunting your thoughts long after you've walked away.