This painting came into being late in the process of creating it. It began as a human figure, as so many of mine do. I worked with a nude male model on an angular hand-on-hip-with-pointed-elbow pose for a number of painting sessions. After many instances of painting it in and out, that elbow became a nose and cast the shadowed profile that assumes the knowing presence, framing the one eye that meets the viewer, inviting complicity, saying, “I know” or “See what I mean?”
My husband declared it the most hideous painting he had seen me do when he first laid eyes on it. Then he stared at it and cried. I knew it would upset him. The painting disturbed me too, and so, I knew it was undeniable and had to be welcomed into being.