This impressionist oil painting depicts a lively beach scene. The bold brushstrokes and vibrant colors, primarily blues and greens, capture the energy and movement of the ocean and the people enjoying the day. The composition features several figures strolling along the sandy shore, with a prominent red and yellow parasol adding a striking visual accent. The artist's loose, expressive style and attention to the play of light and shadow suggest an interest in capturing the fleeting, atmospheric qualities of the seaside setting. This work likely reflects the artist's desire to convey the sensations and experiences of a day at the beach in an era when outdoor leisure was becoming increasingly popular. ...
Stephen Polatch dissolves the complex hierarchy of natural, architectural, and human orders. Typically, a central exchange between Polatch’s subjects is what matters most in his works. Moments such as these — crossing glances, collaborations between humans and animals, or inner visions projecting into the picture plane— occupy a focal point from which his compositions are bent around. Their compact scale also lends the works a concentrated sense of longing for something purer and more direct, which corresponds to his technique of applying unmixed pigment directly to the surface of the canvas. Polatch refutes a stable chronology, employing a wide range of historical references, from the lyricism and symbolic imagery of medieval illuminated manuscripts, the brilliant lighting of the Nabis, to the repetitive mechanics of Futurism—within the interconnected systems of Polatch’s compositions is the promise, the rushing fluidity, of discovering the new in the familiar. ...
