Exhausted from Work 1997

Morteza Katouzian has captured a moment of complete exhaustion in oil on canvas. I wonder how long it took to make this? Because it kind of radiates all the feelings of being tired. The warm light and earthy tones evoke a sense of weariness, like the end of a very long day. I bet Katouzian felt sympathy for the figure he was painting. He captured the slumped posture, the shadow on his face. It’s like the paint itself is sagging with fatigue. There’s a vulnerability here, isn’t there? I look at this, and I think about Lucian Freud, who put a mirror up to the human condition. Artists keep responding to each other, riffing off ideas across decades. The way Katouzian handles the light, the brushstrokes, it's like he's in conversation with painters of the past, adding his own voice to the chorus. And now we get to join in, too.