Femme au chapeau 2020

Carlos Sablòn made Femme au chapeau with oil on canvas. The colour palette is restrained, but the gesture is wild and expressive. I can just imagine Sablòn at the easel, building up the layers of paint, pushing and pulling the forms until this woman emerges. I find myself wondering what Sablòn was thinking as he constructed that hat, that enormous swirling mass. Is it hair, is it fabric, is it a cloud of thought? There's something so playful and imaginative in the way he's built up the texture, like he's letting the paint itself dictate the forms. The paint is quite thin and translucent, giving it an airy, dreamlike quality. That single looping brushstroke that defines the edge of the hat – it’s so simple, yet it communicates so much about movement and volume. It makes me think of other painters who are similarly pushing the boundaries of portraiture, like Lisa Yuskavage or even John Currin. Ultimately, painting is a conversation, an ongoing exchange of ideas across time. Sablòn is in dialogue with the past, but he’s also forging his own path. And the beauty of it all is that there's no one right answer. It's about opening up a space for multiple interpretations, for embracing the ambiguity and uncertainty of the human experience.