Smoker Study #38 1967

This is a 'Smoker Study #38' by Tom Wesselmann, who was born in 1931 and died in 2004. The painting shows a close-up of a pair of lips, painted a vibrant red, holding a cigarette, with smoke curling upwards, all on a pale green background. I wonder what Wesselmann was thinking when he made this, what he was looking at, and what he was trying to capture! Was he trying to show something about the beauty, the danger, or the everydayness of smoking? I can see him mixing that red – maybe he was thinking of lipstick, or desire. And the smoke itself! It's almost like a ghostly figure, a wavering presence. Painting smoke must be a challenge – how do you make something solid out of something so ephemeral? It makes me think about all the painters who came before him, wrestling with the same problems of how to represent the world on a flat surface. It's one big conversation, this painting thing.