Biedermeier Milieu (Mood) 1994

Maria Bozoky made this watercolor and ink piece, Biedermeier Milieu, at some point during her career, but there is no record of exactly when. Just look at how she creates depth and volume with these see-through washes and scribbled lines. The figure and the furniture merge into one another, creating a sense of ghostly presence, or maybe one of the passage of time. The blues and the reds in the painting are earthy and somber, while the line work seems restless, agitated. The woman's hands, for instance, are rendered with an almost violent energy, contrasting with the sense of stillness in her face. There’s a lot of drawing in painting like this. It reminds me a bit of the work of Egon Schiele. I see the way she has handled these materials as an expression of a sensibility, but of course, we can never be sure. That’s the best thing about art, though, isn’t it? There are no fixed meanings, only endless possibilities.