Vegetable seller from Jaipur 1976

Mariam Aslamazian painted this vegetable seller from Jaipur with what looks like confident, smooth strokes, a vibrant hymn in oil paint. I can imagine Aslamazian, brush in hand, balancing color and form, figuring out the light as it drapes over the seller's yellow sari. There's a kind of dance happening between the painter and the subject, a give-and-take where the painting itself becomes a space of exchange. The paint is smooth, not too thick, which gives the painting a kind of breezy openness. The way she’s rendered the vegetables is pretty great – a vibrant splash of green and red that pops against the buildings behind. It reminds me of other figurative paintings where color and line come together to evoke a sense of place and feeling. I think that artists are always talking to each other across time and space. Aslamazian’s vision feels like one part of that ongoing chat.