Prehistoric Figure 1980

Charles Garabedian made this painting, “Prehistoric Figure,” with, it looks like, pretty straightforward acrylic on board. It's this figure rendered in thin washes of pink, red, and white, against a vigorously brushed blue background. The way he just lets the strokes be visible, raw even, tells me he's thinking about the act of painting itself. Check out that pointing hand. It's not about realism, but about this primal gesture, directing our gaze, our thoughts maybe. The paint’s thin, almost transparent in places, which gives the figure this ghostly quality. The surface is alive with brushstrokes, none of them hidden. It’s like Garabedian wants us to see him at work, wrestling with the image, layer by layer. Garabedian reminds me a bit of Philip Guston, in the way he uses a kind of clumsy figuration to get at something deeply human. It’s all about the back and forth, the push and pull, of seeing and thinking, of doing and undoing.