Portrait of a Couple Steve and Anne in LA 2008

Curator: This is Eric Fischl's "Portrait of a Couple Steve and Anne in LA," an oil painting created in 2008. The work is rooted in the genre of portraiture, but updated through a contemporary lens. Editor: The first thing I notice is the tension, not in a dramatic way, but subtle. It's the distance between the figures, almost as if they are in different worlds. The loose brushstrokes and the slightly unsettling expressions contribute to this mood. Curator: That tension you’re picking up on speaks, I think, to the complex history of the couple portrait. Fischl sets the subjects together but also allows them to exist separately. The space is intriguing; there's a kind of casual artificiality about the setting. It's outside, but the darkness in the background almost makes it seem staged. Editor: Exactly. The woman, standing tall in her fiery dress, almost melts into a natural element; that strange branch draped across her chest obscures the boundary between the woman and environment. Meanwhile, the man looks so casual in comparison, as if he were interrupted while deep in thought, as if there is some psychological weight or internal contemplation that she is not part of. He looks self-aware; she is lost. Curator: And the setting really cements that feeling. They are surrounded by elements of relaxation, right? But it feels almost melancholic or unsettling. The shadows, the almost monochromatic background, even the blank expression on the man—everything enhances that sense of something lurking just beneath the surface of this LA domestic idyll. The swing set adds an odd element, it gives you that sense of place, something quiet or playful against all of the serious composure in both faces. Editor: Absolutely. The swing hangs unused as a painful reminder of time’s passing, as if it is an object in a stage set and the play it is staging will never occur. In that way, the title offers a wry irony. A “portrait of a couple”, when that portrait presents two solitary individuals who have lost touch even as they co-exist in shared space. Curator: I find myself contemplating the choices that define this scene. What did these people accomplish with each other? What's next? Fischl leaves the questions hanging in the same way the shadow lurks on the man's swing, inviting our own projections onto these figures. Editor: The open-ended narrative, the disquiet, that feeling of searching—it really gets under your skin. And you are left with an unsettling calm—they know it, they carry on. Perhaps tomorrow.