Chris Evert 1977

Andy Warhol’s image of Chris Evert involves silk-screening, but also thick brushstrokes in screaming yellow. I’m trying to imagine being Warhol, feeling out how to portray a tennis star: the concentration, the speed, and the power. Warhol has used color here in a way that is both graphic and gestural, maybe like Robert Rauschenberg. The yellow paint feels like a spotlight, or pure energy. You can see each stroke, how it hits the surface and then slides slightly downwards. There's an odd pink highlight on the face that does something strange to the reading of depth - is it an erasure or an assertion? What’s great about painting is how one artist riffs on another; it's like one continuous, sprawling conversation. Each artist brings their own experiences, experiments, and perspectives to the table. Painting is a process of trying things out, responding to what's there, and allowing for happy accidents along the way. It embraces this open-endedness, allowing for multiple interpretations and meanings.