Patience

2011
Inkjet on watercolour paper
85 x 64 centimeters

Balthus (Balthasar Klossowski de Rola) is an unusual figure in 20th century art. He is a classicist rather than a modernist and his voyeuristic depictions of teenaged girls exuding a disturbing eroticism would probably land him in prison if he had painted them today. These qualities are implicit rather than overt in his 1943 painting, Patience. The disarray of the objects and the hunched pose of the girl suggest a pent-up energy and frustration with her playthings and the confining atmosphere of the bourgeois parlour.

In this reimagining I decided to focus on the composition of the radically slanted figure in the room with it's furnishings and objects. The striped wallpaper, the lacquered tortoise shell wood table, the chartreuse green drape, the patterns on the pillow and rug, the decorations on the boxes and book cover were calculated to crisply beef up the quiet monochromatic mood of the original.

Balthus | Solitaire, 1943
Bizarre Balthus show reveals artist's fixation with cats and young girls: The Guardian

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