La Perle 1978

Léonor Fini painted this peculiar figure, La Perle, with oil on canvas, though I don’t know exactly when. The color is subtle, a mix of pale flesh tones and washed out blues, so the eerie quality of the figure slowly creeps up on you. There's a sense of meticulous craftsmanship in the way Fini builds up her glazes to describe the figure's torso, suspended by a cord. The skin looks almost porcelain, but the form below the torso turns into two columns, legs that fade into a peach colored curtain, or maybe it's some kind of strange skirt! It gives me this weird push and pull feeling, a combination of something alluring and something unsettling. The way she blends the edges and obscures the details makes me think a little of Balthus, especially the way he paints children. Both of them play with this idea of the uncanny, where things aren't quite right, and beauty has a shadow side. Ultimately, this is what keeps me coming back. It’s not about answers, it’s about the questions this strange and beautiful painting stirs up.