Jug c. 1937

Yolande Delasser made this painting, Jug, with an open mind and maybe just a few materials. The colour palette is muted, almost monochrome, which is a choice, but you sense it could have also been what was available. What’s interesting here is the layering, or maybe the order of things. It feels like Delasser painted the solid block colour in the lower half of the image first, followed by the bird motif, and only after that did they sketch the jug itself. I love the way the jug feels less real and more ethereal than the bird – almost like it's fading away, or never existed. Look at the colour and the texture of the bird's body; that dark wash pools at the bottom of each stroke and helps to give the image form. There’s something very direct about the mark making here, it is immediate, with no going back to correct. You get the sense that Delasser is interested in the process, in the here and now, rather than striving for some kind of perfect representation.