Self-portrait with Svetlana

Two figures share a rustic interior: a woman with a white kerchief and quilted blue vest sits in the foreground, hands folded, gazing calmly outward, while a man in a dark cap and black shirt stands close behind her, one hand hanging at his side. Behind them rises a high stack of split birch logs, their pale cut ends catching the light against the shadowed wall.

Brushwork is broad and worked wet-into-wet, contrasting the pale, warm tones of the woodpile with the near-black clothing of the standing figure. Faces are built with a few decisive strokes of flesh tone against darker grounds, giving the double portrait a plain, unguarded intimacy and a quiet domestic gravity.