Dress c. 1936

Jessie M. Benge made this watercolor artwork called ‘Dress.’ The first thing I notice is the lush, saturated blue and the way it’s offset with this almost ghostly, unfinished drawing of the same dress right next to it. Up close, the blue dress is a feast of floral patterns. Benge layers the paint, building up depth and texture, like a painterly textile. You can see the delicate lace collar with its own intricate detailing. Look at how the light seems to catch the fabric, giving it a sheen and movement! The physicality of the medium, the way the watercolor pools and blends, adds to the dress’s dreamy quality. It feels like a memory, a vision of something beautiful and fleeting. This feels a bit like those studies you see by someone like Agnes Martin, the way she’d play with grids, but here, it’s a dress, caught mid-creation. It is as if she is searching for how to create the perfect dress with a constant back and forth. And that, my friends, is what makes art so endlessly captivating.