Interno cubista 1912

Aleksandra Ekster made this painting, Interno Cubista, with oil on canvas, and looking at it, I can really feel the cubist influence. The color palette is pretty muted—lots of browns, grays, and ochres—but then she throws in these pops of red and yellow, which are like little jolts to the system. I love that. The paint looks pretty thin and washy, which gives the whole thing a kind of dreamy, ethereal feel. There's this one area, right in the center, where she’s layered a bunch of different colors on top of each other. It creates this sense of depth and complexity that I find really compelling. You can almost see her thought process as she's building up the painting, layer by layer. This piece reminds me a bit of Braque, particularly in the way she breaks down the subject into these fragmented planes. But Ekster brings her own unique sensibility to it, imbuing the painting with a sense of energy and dynamism that's all her own. Art is an ongoing conversation.