Sum Of All Parts 2018

Martine Johanna's painting, Sum Of All Parts, is this fascinating puzzle of a portrait, constructed from both recognisable and abstract shapes. You can almost imagine Johanna stepping back, reassessing, adding, and subtracting as the figure slowly emerges. I love the contrast between the realism of the woman's face and the abstract blocks of colour and the large black amorphous shapes; they seem to simultaneously reveal and conceal. It’s as if Johanna is playing with the idea of identity, breaking it down into fragments and reassembling it in unexpected ways. You know, that hand at the face, that moment of self-reflection, a conversation with the artist, a conversation with herself. It reminds me a little of Francis Picabia’s later, more figurative work, where he layered images and styles to create these complex, almost hallucinatory portraits. It’s like they’re both saying that a person isn’t just one thing, one image, but a collection of experiences, emotions, and memories. Each artist speaks to the other across time, each figuring out ways of visualising their feelings on canvas.