Mirror #4 1972

Roy Lichtenstein made *Mirror #4* and who knows what he was thinking? I can imagine him, though, in his studio, staring into an inky void. The painting is all hard lines and flat color, and feels so impersonal, so unlike my kind of painting. I wonder if he was trying to capture the elusive quality of reflection, the way a mirror shows you something, but it's never quite the whole story. Was he thinking about painting itself as a kind of mirror, reflecting back at the world? Look at that thick black circle taking up most of the canvas. It’s not just a shape, it’s a presence. And then you've got those little dots marching around the edge, like a screen, or a memory. I like to think Lichtenstein and I, and all painters are in conversation, across time, inspiring each other, even if we never met. His work reminds us that painting can be anything we want it to be – a mirror, a window, or a door.