Three Girls 1932

Kazimir Malevich’s ‘Three Girls’ at the Russian Museum is a painting with flat colours and simple shapes, like the artist was making it up as he went along. I imagine Malevich, paintbrush in hand, circling the canvas, trying out ideas, adding a stroke of pink, a block of black, letting the composition emerge bit by bit. Look at how he's divided their faces into two distinct colour blocks; what does that mean? There's a definite folk art vibe, too, perhaps because of the pared-down forms. I feel a connection with other artists who were breaking down visual language like Marsden Hartley who was making portraits with shapes. It's this kind of looking and re-looking that makes art so alive—painters building on each other's visions, and me, here, adding my own thoughts to the mix. That's the fun of painting, it's never truly finished, is it?