Tankard c. 1940

Hester Duany's "Tankard" is rendered with what looks like watercolor on paper. The approach to mark-making gives it this lovely handmade, process-oriented feel. The texture is everything here; you can almost feel the grain of the wood. Look at the vertical lines, like tracks, and the way the light seems to catch on them. There's a real sense of the object's materiality – it's weight, its age, its history. The colors are muted, earthy, which only adds to that feeling. There is an ambiguity in the process of representation. The translucence of the medium helps to make the object feel like a ghost. This piece makes me think a little bit of Giorgio Morandi and his still lifes, where ordinary objects become these quiet, meditative subjects. There is a similar sense of contemplation, a focus on the simple beauty of everyday things. Ultimately, it’s the ambiguity and the invitation to multiple interpretations that makes this work so compelling.