Artist and Nude 1940

Milton Avery made this painting, "Artist and Nude," with oil on canvas. The subdued color palette and simplified forms are vintage Avery! The scene unfolds with these big shapes of color: a pink wall, a blue window, and the pale form of a nude. I can imagine him moving the paint around, adding and subtracting until the composition felt just right. It’s so interesting to think about what Avery was thinking when he made this. Was he just looking at Matisse and Vuillard? Probably! He's a master of suggestion. And this kind of openness is really what painting is about. That one long, continuous brushstroke that makes up the model's leg communicates so much with so little! Painters are in an ongoing conversation, a constant exchange of ideas. I feel this in my own work, where ambiguity is embraced. In the end, painting is a form of embodied expression which allows for multiple readings. What do you see?