Boat 2022

Nick Alm painted "Boat," sometime in the 21st century, using oils. It's a somber little thing, all soft edges and muted tones, blues and grays sort of bleeding into each other like a watercolor, only with the heft of oil paint. Looking closely, the surface has got these vertical streaks, almost like rain running down a window, which adds to the feeling of being submerged, or like, lost in thought. And that boat way in the back, it’s barely there, a little smudge. It’s like a memory of something you can't quite grasp. There's something about the way the figure is rendered, that reminds me of Gerhard Richter's blurred portraits, that ambiguity between presence and absence. Art's funny like that, always whispering to each other across time, a constant conversation.