Lucian Freud at MoMA
I am standing in front of an oversized painting of an oversized woman lounging on a couch. The perspective of the floor boards is dizzying; the paint is spackled on in thick slabs. I am in MoMA's Lucian Freud exhibit and I can not pull myself away from this piece. I step back to view the overall effect, then dart in to examine the heavily textured brush strokes.
I remember my own work at home. How I struggled in the studio just a few days before with the new square canvases I have started to use. I have always worked on vertical canvases and the new wider format was making it hard to view of the model while simultaneously painting on the far right side of the canvas. So now I stand in front of this 160 cm wide painting and I wonder how he did it.
I must internalize this; I want to experience it as he did. The painting is hung on a narrow wall and I can see past it on either side. I hold an invisible paintbrush in my right hand. I am "painting" on the left side of his work, peering around it to view the nonexistent Benefits Supervisor resting on the couch. Then I move to the right. Did he tilt his easel toward the model so he could see both her and the painting surface? (Is that why the perspective is so unsettling?) Or if not, did he dash to the left, hold the image in his mind and then dash to the right to paint in what he saw? (As I do now to see what that would feel like. The painting is huge.) Or perhaps he is ambidextrous so I switch my fictitious brush to my left hand, peer around the right side and dab at the canvas. I step back to appreciate "my" work.
When I was a little girl, I asked my parents if I could take a giraffe home from the zoo. I told them I would keep it in my bedroom closet. Now I want to take this painting home with me, put it in my garage and reproduce it. I would learn so much. It would be easier to care for than a giraffe.
Lucian Freud: Benefits Supervisor Resting
1994, Oil on canvas. 160x150 cm
Lucian Freud: Benefits Supervisor Resting (Detail)
1994, Oil on canvas. 160x150 cm

My blog used to be on Windows Live Spaces which was unfortunate because the site's code of conduct policy didn't allow me to post images of my artwork. I was forced to delete figure drawings and paintings I had posted after receiving a threat by the site's administrators that my Space was going to be deleted unless I complied. The painting on the right is the one that got me into trouble. It popped up on somebody's radar (eek! breasts!) and soon my entire Space was called into question. 

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