Lisa 1983

This is Patrick Nagel's "Lisa," and what I'm seeing are flat, graphic shapes in a limited palette, it looks like a screen print. Imagine the artist carefully placing each color, building up the image layer by layer. I'm thinking about the cool detachment in Nagel's work, the streamlined elegance of the 80s. The woman’s gaze drifts off and into the distance – you can feel the restraint, the control. Everything's so sleek and stylized, and there’s this intriguing contrast between the sharp lines and the soft curves of her face. There’s this shadow that mimics the profile like a ghost, a feeling of depth in such a flat image. Nagel really nails the sense of the modern woman: strong, enigmatic, and self-assured. It’s a real echo of the polish and perfection you find in artists like Alex Katz. These paintings are traces of the collective consciousness of what the modern world can be.