Couple 1998

Alexander Bogen painted these figures with an intuitive patchwork of color and form. I can see him working on this canvas, maybe starting with the blue, building up the painting with blocks of color to find the figures within this chromatic architecture. The pink form above the woman on the left seems to float, untethered, like a thought. It’s the kind of mark that might have emerged accidentally but then felt so right that it had to stay. What was he thinking, making these long necks? Are they elegant, or is there a vulnerability there? I look at the woman on the right—her colors are bolder, confident, red and pink like a Matisse interior. Her hand trails down, rendered with just enough detail to suggest tenderness. We could talk about Cubism or Modernism, but really, what Bogen does here is deeply personal. Painting is a conversation across time, and Bogen's contribution to that exchange feels intimate and bold, embracing the ambiguity of human connection with every brushstroke.