Retro 7s 2019

Monica Ikegwu painted Retro 7s in oil on canvas, and you can see how her mark-making follows the shapes of things, which is cool. I mean, check out the way the greenish grey tones build the volumes, where the young guy almost pops out of the painting. There’s something really lovely in the way the jacket just sits on the surface, all thin and shiny. I like how she's working in thin layers of paint, letting the tones peek through, especially in the shadows of the jacket and the guy's face – she isn't trying to hide her working process at all. It’s really refreshing. And then there’s that shoe, front and center, held out to us like, here, look at this! It reminds me of Barkley Hendricks, you know, with his focus on the details of how people present themselves and how that becomes a kind of art in itself. It's all about seeing and being seen, right?