Alice 

Editor: This painting is called "Alice" by Charles Blackman, made with acrylic paint and impasto. There's a dreamlike quality to it; the colour palette is largely blue with spots of red. The composition is unusual and feels almost unbalanced, yet there's an intriguing harmony at play. What do you make of this artwork? Curator: Immediately striking is the Fauvist use of colour, seemingly divorced from descriptive reality, to elicit emotional and psychological responses. The arbitrary juxtaposition of blues, reds and yellows operates less as representation and more as formal strategy. What principles of organisation do you perceive? Is it symmetrical, balanced, or unified? Editor: Not particularly, there are very strong diagonal lines leading up to the woman's face which creates some stability, but there's definitely an asymmetry in the depiction of the two bird-like figures below her. Curator: Precisely. The tension between compositional harmony and disharmony contributes significantly to the viewing experience. Moreover, observe the materiality; the impasto application of acrylic paint. What textural effects and art historical precedents can be deduced? Editor: You can clearly see the brushstrokes. The impasto gives the painting such a tactile sense. Maybe similar to Van Gogh, even though he mostly worked with oils, the texture adds another layer of meaning. I never thought of looking at a painting that way. Curator: The surface articulation interacts dynamically with the Fauvist colour scheme, thereby intensifying its overall aesthetic impact. Consider also the abstracted form, particularly of the "Alice" figure. Through form and colour, Blackman constructs something evocative yet also distant, dreamlike as you put it. It resists simple interpretation, relying on a formal language. Editor: I see what you mean. It’s definitely a painting that prompts more questions than answers. Curator: Precisely, and a rewarding experience from careful attention to its constituent formal properties.