White Anthurium 2013

Soey Milk made *White Anthurium* with oils, coaxing out the figure from this ground of mottled grays, beiges, and whites. I can imagine the painting coming into being, shifting and emerging through trial, error, and intuition. What’s it like to want to make something like this? It’s a real question. To use the body like this, in such a direct way. I can imagine Milk, brush in hand, trying to get the skin tones just right, mixing colors, layering paint, wiping it away, starting again. The white drips from her lower lip are so good; they have a kind of graphic crispness against the figure’s more modeled features. Milk is in conversation with a lot of artists here: Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, and Jenny Saville all come to mind, but she's also doing something completely unique to her. Painting is an embodied expression, it embraces ambiguity and uncertainty, allowing for multiple interpretations.