Vargas Pile

The first in a series of Vargas girl pictures I have been making, she's kind of a test run. I like the juxtaposition of the cheesecake girl next to the bodies. There is something more concrete about this picture even as its color balance is a little off. Perhaps too much meat or too many flags in deliberately off-palette colors? The relationship of the complete figure to the pile is mercifully ambiguous. I cannot decide whether she functions as author, witness, accumulator, conspirator, or maybe just complicit bystander (lounger)? I am deeply influenced by a bunch of what's up in NYC right now, interestingly, this question of authorship and piles has already been dealt with quite handily by one of my faves: Julie Heffernan. Artnet has a beautiful article on her and her self-eating portraiture called "All this useless Booty," that went up a few days ago. Geez, feeling humbled. There's also Natalie Frank's show, "Where She Stops," which one of my most adroit students reminded me about yesterday. I'm not sure I've resolved what I think about Frank yet, she reminds me of Jean Leon Gerome in a way that I'm not entirely comfortable with in this group of paintings, and yet I'm so seduced. Well, happily, the studio is humming, and now I must get back to it. Happy saturday!