Amy Sillman

The two works Little Elephant (2024) and Afternoon (2024) are impressive as individual works, but could also be regarded as related by the artist’s serial method of working. The prominent red figure is centrally placed and conspicuous in both paintings. The underlying composition, which was produced by applying and removing layers of paint, as well as the choice of color differ, each creating a new effect and meaning in the work. Hence the different titles. While the artist was seeking to evoke a small elephant with its trunk outstretched in the smaller work, in the larger one she is clearly referring to a reclining figure’s afternoon siesta.

Since Sillman’s work is informed by art history, her references are easy to recognize. The red figure in both paintings is reminiscent of Henri Matisse’s Grand nu couché (Nu rose) from 1935. Although Sillman’s paintings distance themselves from the figurative, she nevertheless commandeers the composition, appropriating the form by reworking it, transforming it, and, in doing so, reinterpreting it. But she has also notably succeeded in removing it from its traditional context, one associated with the “male gaze.”

Comparative Illustrations

Abb.: Henri Matisse, Grand nu couché (Nu rose), 1935, Oil on canvas, 66,4 x 93,3 cm, The Baltimore Museum of Art: The Cone Collection, founded by Dr. Claribel Cone and Miss Etta Cone, Baltimore, Maryland (BMA 1950.258), © Succession Henri Matisse / 2024, ProLitteris, Zürich, Photograph: © The Baltimore Museum of Art: The Cone Collection / Mitro Hood