Untitled Nu 1958

Nuri Iyem’s ‘Untitled Nu’ is a little puzzle rendered in oil paint on canvas. Looking at this picture, I'm wondering what it was like for Iyem to make it? There’s a beautiful tension between a simplified graphic style and the richness of the paint handling. The paint is pushed around, almost dry, and the figures emerge from an evocative blue ground. One figure sits with legs raised to the sky, while the other squints as she scans the horizon; a pose reminiscent of Cezanne’s bathers. I feel like Iyem, who worked in relative isolation, was definitely looking at what his peers were up to in Europe. It's a lovely painting, a conversation across time, and an invitation to meditate on seeing, looking, and being seen.