Woman with fish 1934

Aleksandra Ekster made "Woman with Fish", a 93 x 74 cm oil on canvas, sometime in the early 20th century. I see how the artist is thinking through colour relationships here, how she constructs depth using only slightly different hues of brown, and how she balances the cool blues and greens with the warmth of the earth tones. There is something solid and sculptural about the way she renders the woman’s form. I love how Ekster used a limited palette, letting the colour harmonies create a sense of unity, and the more I look, the more I see how this piece isn't really about colour at all, but rather about how light and shadow can be deployed to suggest volume. Take the way the fish is rendered, for example, it's almost as though it's made from light itself. The whole thing has an almost biblical, mythic quality that reminds me of the symbolist paintings of Puvis de Chavannes, but with an added layer of Russian modernism. It feels like Ekster is saying that art is a conversation, not a monologue.