Mother and son

An elderly woman in a maroon dress and grey shawl sits at a plain table, hands folded in her lap, gazing to the side. Behind her, filling most of the canvas, looms a much larger, pale half-length figure of a young man in an olive military shirt with a small red badge, his hand resting on the table's edge.

Painted in muted greys and olive green with one note of deep red, the woman is built with tactile, worked brushwork while the man behind her stays flat and diffuse, almost bleached into the wall. The contrast separates the living sitter from a remembered presence, giving the image a quiet, melancholic sense of loss.