Portrait of a Woman 1922

Maggie Laubser made this "Portrait of a Woman" with oil paint, and you can really see the process, can’t you? The brushstrokes are confident and visible, laying down planes of color to build up the form of the sitter. I love how Laubser fearlessly applies the paint. Look at the way she models the face with strokes of pink, green, and lavender. It’s not about perfect representation; it's about capturing a feeling, an essence. There’s a tension between the flatness of the picture plane and the illusion of three-dimensionality, a quality I also try to incorporate in my own work. The dark outline around the figure, and the bold shapes really stand out. It reminds me a little of early Gauguin, with that same interest in simplifying forms and using color expressively. But Laubser has her own distinct voice, a kind of earthy directness. It is through this piece that the viewer gets a sense of the artist's world; not necessarily the way it is but the way she sees it.