Inhabited Painting 1975

Helena Almeida made this black-and-white photograph with blue paint. What I love about this image is the way it makes me think about the act of painting, inhabiting the painting, and then, painting yourself back out of it. The blue strokes are bold and opaque. I imagine her standing there, maybe with a loaded brush, thinking about how to cover herself, maybe obliterate herself, but not completely. It's kind of a dance, isn't it? How much to reveal, how much to conceal? The physical presence of the paint on the photographic surface becomes a gesture of defiance or maybe even empowerment. Almeida’s work is a conversation with other painters who engage with the body—maybe Carolee Schneemann?—but doing so through the lens of her own experience as a woman artist. It's a reminder that art-making is a form of embodiment, a way of working through ideas and feelings, and a constant dialogue with what has come before.