Study for Face #3 1967

Tom Wesselmann made this Study for Face #3, with paint of some kind, maybe acrylic. It’s a close-up of a face, but really just a collection of shapes and colours. There is a real process of abstraction at play here. The juicy, fleshy pink of the face is so present, isn’t it? The blue eye shadow, that red, wet mouth, the colours are almost edible. The face is cropped, it’s almost falling out of the frame, and this heightens the sense of immediacy. It feels like a pure, raw gesture. Look how the artist has handled the paint, it seems so basic, so simple, yet so effective. Wesselmann, like his contemporary, Alex Katz, shared a fascination with the visual language of advertising, but I reckon the early work of someone like James Rosenquist comes to mind when I see this, with its fragmenting of imagery and bold juxtaposition of colours. Art is an ongoing conversation, an echo of voices through time.