Bar stool 2017

This is Nick Alm’s painting of a figure on a bar stool, and just looking at it, I can imagine Alm in the studio, figuring it out, shifting this and that, finding his way through the darks and lights. I can feel the artist sympathizing with the figure, imagining her there, maybe a bit uncertain, maybe a bit bored. I’m really drawn to the texture of the painting. Look at how the paint is laid on, a little thin in places, a little thicker in others, creating a surface that feels alive and breathing. And the color! It’s almost all blacks and browns, but there are so many variations, so many subtle shifts. Check out the way the figure's jacket falls off her shoulder, almost as though it is falling into abstraction. What a beautiful gesture. And it reminds me that artists are always in conversation with each other, borrowing and riffing off each other's ideas, playing with ambiguity, inviting us to see the world in new ways.