Cercle vicieux rouge 1968

Evelyne Axell, sometime in the 60’s, made this painting, I guess with oils, of a woman’s back and legs inside a big red circle. The first thing that grabs you is the simplicity of it all. The red is so flat and bold, it's like a sign, a signal. Then you notice the legs, pale and kind of ghostly against that screaming red. There's something about the way the color is layered, not quite blended, that makes the body feel like it's emerging, slowly, from a dream. It’s as if Axell is showing us the process of something coming into being. Look at the soft edges of the legs where they meet that red. See how the colors bleed and blur? That's where the real magic happens, that messy, uncertain space where bodies and ideas meet. Axell’s work reminds me a bit of Alex Katz, in that it embraces a similar kind of bold simplicity and flat space. But the rawness in Axell’s work, that open-ended searching, is all her own. The painting is a question, not an answer.