FEMME

I found this work by Wilfredo Lam, a Cuban artist, in a biographical book entirely in French (this made it difficult to decipher much about the artist).  It’s titled “Femme (Portrait de H.H.),” meaning Woman.  What I like about this piece, like a lot of the artist’s other work, is that even though the figure is quite abstracted, you can still see exactly what Lam is painting, as well pick out what I think of as the more formal elements of drawing and/or painting: line, form, texture, color, shadow, etc.  He’s not creating a naturalistic painting, but he’s not just lobbing paint at a page either (not that I’m against that).  It’s like that saying… something about, it takes a really skilled singer to be able to sing out of tune.  Just as I think it takes a really skilled artist to be able to represent an unrealistic whole in a realistic manner.  I love the way the woman pops out of the page against the orange background and the almost unfinished look of the color next to the black line.  I think of Lam as giving us a chance to finish the piece ourselves in our own minds.