Lovers No.3 2020

Curator: Right, let's talk about "Lovers No. 3," a 2020 acrylic painting by Owen Gent. The artwork portrays a nude couple embracing on a couch, rendered in warm hues against a muted background. What's your first reaction? Editor: It's funny, it hits me as both intimate and isolating. There's the obvious closeness, but that mustard-colored background feels oppressive. Almost like a vintage film still capturing a fragile, fleeting moment. What’s your take? Curator: Well, that feeling might stem from Gent’s style, which pulls from Modernist traditions of stripping down forms to basic geometric shapes. We're looking at figures that are figurative but border on abstraction, reducing individuals to their essence as parts of a pair. Consider its potential influences. How would this compare to a more straightforward representational work, given the cultural context we find it in now? Editor: Absolutely! There’s also a definite push-pull in the coloring. I am stuck by how it’s largely this sort of earth-tone palette, with the unexpected jolt of blue almost hiding in the shadows there... Like some lost dream fragment slipped into everyday consciousness. Do you think that specific palette choices reflect intentional reference to isolation, beyond formal abstraction of forms? Curator: Potentially, yes. But considering it historically, color also becomes subject to market trends, the rise and fall of movements, even particular studios shaping the tools artists have at hand! The artist, and their decisions, exist in a socio-economic setting and also, naturally, that will influence how that individual choice functions within this piece. What I am especially curious about is how this moment of vulnerability can function beyond that interpersonal dyad to encompass something of broader interest. How would you evaluate the success of the symbolism? Editor: Hmmm, for me it evokes the fragile nature of connection itself. Like, even when we're physically entwined, we can still feel adrift. The artist has left something like space, more so a zone of something missing that calls me to imagine what that emptiness feels like in my life, but even better, with those people nearest to me, where words always fail, where the greatest distance appears closest together. Curator: That is insightful; seeing the space within that connectedness gives us much to consider with this piece. Editor: It’s an affecting painting and a reminder that even within an intimate relationship, shadows lurk, both real and imagined, shaping what togetherness really means. Thanks for breaking it down so richly.