Wedding Dress c. 1936

Bessie Forman made this drawing of a wedding dress with some kind of light brown paint on paper. The color palette is muted, almost sepia-toned. It reminds me of old photographs, faded with time, with a sort of softness that only comes with age. The dress is rendered with such attention to detail. Look at the way the fabric drapes and folds, each crease and shadow carefully articulated. Forman seems to have been interested in process, in the slow, deliberate act of creation. The textures she’s able to create with simple paint are incredible. There’s a tension between the flatness of the paper and the illusion of three-dimensionality she creates. I find my eye returning to the back view of the dress, which is rendered in the simple outline. This embrace of multiple perspectives and approaches reminds me of the work of some contemporary artists playing with representation. It’s like Forman is saying, "Here it is, in all its complexity, unfinished, and open to interpretation."