Big Northview 2001

Lisa Yuskavage made Big Northview with oil on linen sometime after she was born in 1962, maybe late at night, in her studio somewhere. There are these girls, and the peach light is like a caress, a kind of dreamy sensuality. I mean, she's wrestling with the canon, right? The history of painting nudes, odalisques, goddesses. I like to imagine her working, maybe she’s thinking of Boucher or Fragonard or some other rococo painter. The paint isn’t too thick. It’s more about the blushing tones, the way she handles the light. I can feel the artist really looking. She sees the female body not just as a form, but as a being. The back figure, with the scarf and the slight curve of the spine – that says it all. It’s all about the touch, the way she mixes colors, and then, wow, that girl slouched on the couch in the foreground. It’s how she is turning observation into feeling. The painting comes alive with ambiguity, it's the artist's conversation with art history and the viewer's invitation to dream.