Goshen Fair c. 1939

Ann Nooney made this image of Goshen Fair with monochromatic pencil or charcoal; you can imagine her making it right there amidst the hustle and bustle. I sympathize with Nooney as she tries to capture the energy of the fair. The way she uses dense marks to create a field of activity, with each stroke contributing to a sense of liveliness. The textures of the tents, the figures, and the landscape are all evoked through the artist's hand. And that one figure, sort of peering out from under the tent, maybe he's trying to catch your eye, or maybe she is catching his; it's hard to tell. Nooney's work seems to build upon a tradition of American scene painting, with echoes of artists like Edward Hopper and Thomas Hart Benton. Artists converse across time, each offering new ways of seeing and experiencing the world. Nooney shows us that painting can be a form of embodied expression that embraces ambiguity and uncertainty, allowing for multiple interpretations.