Emma 2002

Curator: Up next, we have "Emma" created in 2002, an acrylic on canvas by the singular Chuck Close. Editor: Whoa. At first glance, it's an explosion of color – almost abstract. But then... the face slowly comes into focus. There’s something intensely intimate, but also oddly detached about it. Like looking at a memory fragmenting. Curator: That tension is pure Close. He took portraiture, traditionally a celebration of the individual, and shattered it into these… tessellations, if you will. It forces us to reconsider how we truly see and perceive. Editor: Those individual squares... they remind me of Byzantine mosaics, fragmented but beautiful on their own. Each contains its own little world, but collectively they construct this recognizable visage. The layering! The complexity! I wonder if we could describe it as the deconstruction of a soul using paint. Curator: I love that! There’s this push and pull, you know? The face resolves as you step back, almost a reward for perspective. But up close, it dissolves again into these ambiguous forms and colours. This really makes me question my own way of observation. Editor: Exactly. Each square, an emotional component. Like little icons each. What are those cool blue and green shards in her left eye all about, huh? Curator: (Chuckles) I always wonder about that sort of thing myself. Ultimately it challenges our own assumptions, perhaps. The symbol of youthful beauty fractured, reconsidered through Close's visual language, perhaps pointing towards the artist's experience. Editor: Definitely a perspective shifter. It sticks with you, this one. It reminds you how constructed "reality" is, and how many tiny perceptions weave what we all see as a portrait or even the face of a loved one. Curator: Precisely. I find myself wondering: is that "Emma's" true likeness? Is it a collection of the artist's perception of her likeness, like his emotional mapping of who this child might be? Editor: Or maybe…a prediction?