Carrie Sleeping 1985

Bobby Donovan painted "Carrie Sleeping" using what looks like monochrome gouache or maybe acrylic on paper. It's all about the brushstrokes, those big, swooping gestures that define form but also dissolve it into something more suggestive. I can almost feel the weight of the paint as Donovan applied it, thick in places, thin in others. Look at how the dark tones around Carrie kind of push her forward. It feels so intimate, like a stolen moment. I can imagine Donovan standing there, brush in hand, trying to capture not just what he saw, but how it felt to see Carrie like that. It reminds me of those quick sketches by the German Expressionists, like Kirchner, where the urgency of the moment is everything. There’s this incredible through-line in painting, from the past to the present. We’re all just riffing off each other, trying to figure out how to make paint sing. It’s less about perfection and more about feeling, a shared exploration of what it means to be human.