Girls from Lankaran 1961

Vajiha Samadova's ‘Girls from Lankaran’ is all about bold, brushed strokes of color – greens, browns, oranges, whites – layered into this energetic composition. You can almost feel the impasto beneath your fingertips. I can just imagine Samadova, brush in hand, really getting into it, trying to capture this fleeting moment. Were the girls laughing? What were they thinking? What was it like to be a female artist painting women in Azerbaijan at that time? Look at how the dabs of white and orange create these shimmering surfaces, like sunlight hitting fabric. I wonder if she looked at the Impressionists - she must have done? - but she's doing something else, something all of her own. What’s cool is how painters, through color and gesture, keep responding to one another. Making marks, showing feelings, telling stories. That's what I want to do!