Interior with Plant, Reflection Listening (Self-Portrait) 1968

Lucian Freud made this intense painting, “Interior with Plant, Reflection Listening (Self-Portrait)” with oils on canvas. I see the way he's built up the surface, scratching into the paint, really letting the physicality of the medium speak. It's like he's wrestling with the image, trying to pin it down. Freud was all about the process, that struggle to capture something real, something raw. Look at the leaves of that plant – those greens and browns are so alive. The texture is so thick, and the brushstrokes so visible, you can almost feel the plant’s spiky leaves brushing against your skin. And then there’s Freud himself, peering out from behind the foliage, hand cupped to his ear. It's so intimate and unnerving. Think about someone like Francis Bacon, who also twisted and contorted the human form, but in a totally different way. It shows how art is an ongoing conversation, always circling around these questions of how to see, how to feel, how to be.