Indian Head 1935 - 1942

Elmer Kottcamp made this so-called Indian Head, sometime in the 20th century, using watercolor. You know, when you look at the flat areas of color, it's like the watercolors have been dragged across the page, with the odd speckle, like the process is right there on the surface. Up close, the face has so much detail! All those tiny brushstrokes building up the color, layers and layers of brown and red that give the head its form. And yet the background is so pale, washed out almost, which gives the whole piece an eerie quality. I can almost see the ghost of the paper coming through. It reminds me a little of some of those early Marsden Hartley portraits with the heavy linework and flat color, but with a folk-art twist. I can feel Kottcamp’s hand in every stroke, and that’s what makes it so engaging. In the end art always has an ambiguity and you can read it in different ways.