Women in Water

A beguiling figure crouches amongst the iridescent tides in Eric Fischl’s Women in Water, 1979, and like much of the artist’s oeuvre, the painting is masterfully rendered enigma. Turquoise and teal waves lap softly at her body, but who or what has caught her attention remains unknown. Characteristic of Fischl’s practice, Women in Water is suffused with emotional complexity. In his inscrutable and enthralling compositions, Fischl returns again and again to the theme of physical and psychological exposure, which his characters explore most often in the beaches, backyards, and bedrooms of suburban America. Although such scenes may feel familiar, Fischl renders the world uncanny, and his painted narratives are never entirely resolvable. By experimenting with scale and proximity, the artist erects stage sets against which his viewers are encouraged to do more than just look. These are paintings that invite projection and transform their viewer into a voyeur. As critic Donal Kuspit observed, ‘Fischl seems to be showing all, but what counts in his work is what is not stated and can never be adequately stated. Fischl's pictures seem to promise us clarity about complex issues, but in fact suggest depth of a complexity that can never be fully deciphered. It is this that makes his pictures peculiarly opaque dreams, abysses of meaning we can never quiet climb out of once we have accepted their terms.’ (D. Kuspit, Fischl, New York 1987, p. 7).