Provenance: Private Collection, USA

ABOUT THE WORK

An elegantly proletariat sense of fashion. Tabuena’s imagery of women is a less explored facet of his body of work. In this painting, she is a fleetnig shadow cum apparition, a chimeric presence seen but not heard. In the stylistic approach, the form is very fully modeled and the face is mysteriously animated. The humble vision of spirit chastising the flesh into subjection is reduced to a single figure. His female subject is quietly ascetic almost to the point of severe as if in a vigil. His work features a subtly realistic use of chiaroscuro and tenebrism. The background is featureless and unevenly dark, further highlighting the subject. She partakes of the nature of a myth. The subject, half draped, with her figure doubled on the ground recalls the romantic theme of a woman as vulnerable subject and hapless victim of conflict and war.