Lobster Girl 2004

Curator: Bo Bartlett's "Lobster Girl," completed in 2004 using acrylic paint, presents us with an intriguing contemporary figurative composition. What’s your immediate read? Editor: Immediately, the uncanny realism jumps out. It's a strangely haunting piece, almost unsettling. The girl’s stern gaze clashes so violently with the oversized, cartoonishly red pot. What’s going on? Curator: The juxtaposition is precisely what captivates. The color palette is restrained, almost muted, except for the pot, which serves as a focal point, drawing our eyes into a deeper reading of symbolic potential. Editor: Symbolic how? It’s giving me absurdist theater vibes, like she’s about to deliver a line ripped straight from a Samuel Beckett play, holding that pot as a prop. The horizon line too makes the entire painting dream-like and surreal. Curator: The formal construction certainly supports that. Note the flatness of the picture plane and the compressed space. Bartlett masterfully manipulates depth, flattening it to create a sense of unease. Consider, too, the psychological weight embedded in the subject's unwavering gaze, seemingly indifferent yet intensely present. It forces the viewer into an active role, inviting speculation on narrative possibility. Editor: You’re right. There's definitely a push-and-pull. I find myself oscillating between thinking she's incredibly powerful—that unflinching stare—and wondering if she’s aware of her predicament within the painting itself. She almost exists outside the frame, a hyper-real intruder. Curator: An astute observation. The girl's detachment underscores a crucial semiotic operation: the construction of identity. Editor: Okay, “semiotic operation.” I will say this experience has helped me understand a little more about that loaded word! But the magic is what remains ambiguous. The painting pulls you into her odd and solitary world; she keeps the key. I'm walking away still a bit creeped out, yet more curious. Curator: And that push-and-pull tension might be Bartlett's intention all along. We are invited to ponder, as observers caught between what’s evident and that which will elude us forever, a liminal space teeming with potent possibility.