Women 2014

Samia Halaby created this lively, large-scale painting called 'Women' with acrylic on canvas. It looks like flames but not quite. I can imagine Samia Halaby in her studio, stepping back, squinting, maybe cursing a bit, definitely thinking hard about how these colors vibrate against each other. There’s something really courageous about using yellows, pinks and oranges like this. It gives the painting a sense of pulsating energy. The individual brushstrokes are so clear. It makes me think about how each one is its own little decision, its own experiment. You know, that one pink mark that leans left – what if it leaned right instead? It’s like she's trying to capture movement, like the women depicted are dancing, maybe, and free. Painters, we’re all in conversation. We’re all trying to figure out how to turn the world into something new. A painting like this, it’s not just a picture, it's a whole way of seeing.