Wet Seal 1966

Here's Allen Jones's painting, Wet Seal. The artist has rendered a pair of legs, sheathed in a dark grey skin, that appear to press against a pane of glass. You know, I can feel Allen wrestling with this painting. What does it mean to flatten a form, and make it alive? I imagine him thinking, what happens when you take something that is 3D—a fetish object, a body—and then squish it into 2D, what is lost and gained? The brushstrokes are visible, suggesting that the artist has applied the paint with care and deliberation. The surface is smooth, almost like skin. It’s a very material practice, this painting thing, right? The dark figure has an assertive, almost confrontational presence. I can see links to Tom Wesselmann, but also, why not, Gustav Courbet? It’s as if artists are passing thoughts back and forth, all the time, across decades. Painting has always been a conversation across time, a kind of messy, ongoing experiment.