Butterfly 1976

Susan Rothenberg’s painting "Butterfly" presents us with an image of a black horse intersected by an X, all set against a salmon-pink ground. Rothenberg emerged in the 1970s, in a moment when painting was declared dead. Yet, she insisted on its possibilities. She is often associated with the New Image Painting movement, which reintroduced recognizable imagery into abstract art. Her choice of the horse is powerful, evoking centuries of art history where the animal appears as a symbol of power and virility. However, Rothenberg complicates this reading by rendering the animal in such a way that it appears both present and absent. The bold cross dissecting the horse serves to both highlight and obscure it, creating a sense of tension. The image invites us to consider how we project ideas of gender and identity onto animals, and how painting can both perpetuate and question these traditions. What do you feel when you look at this image?