Louisiana Serenade 1979

Romare Bearden made this gouache on board with a warm palette of reds, greens and yellows, and cool hues of blue and purple. I imagine Bearden, brush in hand, hovering close to the surface, shifting and emerging through trial, error, and intuition. Looking at these figures, I sympathize with the artist, imagining what it might have been like to create this serenade. The painting feels very bodily, a physical encounter with the medium; you can almost sense the thickness of the gouache and the texture of the board. The forms are defined by the colour that surrounds them, with soft pinks and whites delineating the curves of the body. There is a gentle push and pull between these tones which enlivens the image, with these various applications of paint generating rhythms and counter-rhythms across the surface. Artists are always in an ongoing conversation, an exchange of ideas across time, inspiring one another’s creativity. The work embraces ambiguity, allowing for multiple interpretations, and meaning over fixed readings.