Untitled [partially nude woman seated wearing a hat] [recto] 1955 - 1967

Richard Diebenkorn made this ink drawing of a partially nude woman sometime in his career, and you can see the thinking and the re-thinking in the lines. I'm looking at the way the ink sits on the page, how the marks feel so immediate and direct. It’s like he’s having a conversation, a dance, with the figure—trying to capture something fleeting, something real. There's a ghosted figure in light blue; a previous attempt. I love that he didn't try to hide that initial search, that’s the way I work too. The dark black lines almost obscuring the legs of the chair. I wonder what he was thinking about when he made this piece. Was he trying to get at something specific, or was he just enjoying the process of looking and drawing? I feel like Diebenkorn is often in dialogue with other artists and art history, figuring things out in real time. Like when I paint, it's not about answers, it's about the questions.