Series Sculpture

A woman reclines against a dark background, her head turned in profile, one arm draped along an unseen ledge and the other resting near her waist. Her gown falls into heavy folds decorated with small flowers, and toward the picture's lower edge her form breaks apart into thin vertical drips running down the canvas.

Rendered almost entirely in grays, ivory and black, the painting evokes a carved marble relief rather than living flesh, with soft academic modeling in the face and hands giving way to raw dripped paint below. The contrast between careful drawing and streaked runoff lends the image a somber, dissolving quality, as if the figure were slowly melting away.