Tahiťanka 1920 - 1930

Mikuláš Galanda painted Tahiťanka with watercolors and ink. The painting feels sparse, yet incredibly potent, as if this artist was searching for a way to convey the essence of a Gauguin painting. I can imagine Galanda looking at his source material, a postcard perhaps, or a reproduction in a book, and thinking hard about what it was about Gauguin's Tahiti that he found so evocative. He probably felt the need to push away from tradition and maybe even find a new way of seeing. Galanda's painting is so different from the original, but in its own way, it captures the beauty and the mystery of Tahiti. It makes me think about how artists are in an ongoing conversation with one another, building on each other's ideas and inspiring each other's creativity. And that painting is never really done, it's always a process of becoming.