Crawford has worked with the same model for her paintings and sculptures for some period of time, each work thus becoming almost a variation not only on a bodily theme but that of a specific body. And yet despite the specificity, there remains a substantial indeterminacy not only as to the precise contours of the female form, but as to differing elements of the form, whether limbs, torso or head. Further, the softness of the artist’s touch itself allows for a rhythmic tonal and structural fading and emergence – hence the title of this particular work. That’s not to say that Crawford paints uncertainly or indeterminately, i.e., these are not the result of chance brushstrokes even where the artist has left an open or uncompleted space. Again, incompleteness is essential to the work, allowing a given viewer to respond with individualized visual or emotional perception to what are in effect bodily prompts. These may be found throughout her works, whether in “Horizon” with its focus on the breast, see Breasts exhibition literature, or the Rückenfigur overtones of a painting like “Emergence,” which allows the viewer vicariously to experience the model’s perspective of an undepicted beholden scene, Crawford perhaps thereby granting a limited window into her otherwise private experience of the person before her.
