Diebenkorn’s drawings have always had a way of getting under my skin.
His lone figures convey a sense of what is bold, sensual and agitated about the observed human being. And my response is to want to study them so I can experience something of their making, immerse myself in the physicality and absorption of marks applied and erased over and over. This often leads to stumbling over my aspirations; that sense of your hands clasping together seconds after the object you were attempting to catch moves through them.
And often the only answer is time. Days and weeks of lived experience sometimes need to intervene between you and your subject before a reimagining of it becomes possible. I was about to abandon my childish effort before I realise this figure could look out from behind that right limb of hers and still pay homage to Diebenkorn’s girl on the flowered sofa.
She would have looked right back at him. No flinch.
Detail from 2020 study after Diebenkorn’s seated woman on flowered sofa ~1966