Nude in motion 1978

Clarence Holbrook Carter gave us "Nude in Motion" with what looks like flat planes of color. I'm imagining him with a brush in hand, trying to capture this sensation of movement through these orange shapes floating on a red background. There's something about the simplicity of it that gets me, like he's stripping away all the fuss to get to the raw essence of form and motion. You can see how the edges blur and shift, implying a body caught in transition. It’s like a memory of a nude, not quite there, always moving. It reminds me of other artists who were trying to distill the human figure, like Matisse or even some of the early abstract expressionists. Painting is like a conversation across time, each artist adding their voice to the mix. I think Carter was asking, “How can I make you feel the body without showing all the details?” That kind of distillation is a powerful question.