The prospect immediately excites me.
“Oh! That’d be great!”
Anya is the artist on display tonight, and she’s drawn in quite a crowd with her series of abstract photographs. Huge framed photos hang on the white walls of the gallery, each one an explosion of geometry and color. Upon scanning the first few photographs in the series, I can immediately see why Nadiya thought it’d be a good idea for me to come to the show. Anya has drawn inspiration from iconic painters much the same way I’m attempting to in my current collection. Her first photograph is an adaption of Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignone. It employs all the same colors as the painting, but Anya has reduced the iconic female figures and replaced them with stripped-down geometric shapes. Gone are Picasso’s brush strokes. Anya’s done a photo collage of vibrant colors so that the abstract shapes layer on top of each other, forcing my gaze to travel over the photograph in a frenzy. If I could afford it, I’d buy the piece on the spot.
Walt seems to enjoy it just as much as I do. He’s standing beside me, intently focused on it.
“Good, right?” I ask.
He nods. “I like it a lot.”
“C’mon, let’s see the others.”
Matthew drifts off to go get a drink, but Walt and I follow the line of photographs down the wall, taking them in in silence. It occurs to me that we could use this time to circle back and continue that conversation he started with Matthew in the library. The dread hasn’t completely left my stomach and I have so much I want to ask him, to press him on, but it doesn’t seem like the right time or place. I’m here for my work, first and foremost. I want to make a good impression on Nadiya.
I focus on the collection as it takes us through small side rooms around the gallery. The pieces grow in size, and the series comes to an end back in the main room with an adaption of Van Gogh’s Chair. The photograph is six feet by six feet, filled with overlapping white squares and rectangles layered over a black background. I’m still studying it, trying to pick apart the details Anya drew from Van Gogh’s painting, when Nadiya finds us again.
She squeezes my arm, and I turn around to see her standing with a woman I recognize to be Anya. Her headshot accompanied the small descriptions placed beside each of her photographs in the series, though now that I see her in real life, I realize it didn’t do her justice.
Likely in her late 30s or early 40s, her red curly hair is tugged up into a messy bun on top of her head, tendrils spilling out in every direction around her delicate face. Nearly without a stitch of makeup, her pale skin glows in the gallery lighting. Her large green eyes seem to be cartoonishly large and incredibly striking. Her features are somehow both beautiful and strange all at once.
She’s looking at Walt, smiling with a slight narrowing at the edges of her eyes, taking him in as Nadiya introduces us.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she says to him, as if I’m not there.
“This is Elizabeth, the artist I was telling you about,” Nadiya says, motioning in my direction.
Anya glances over at me, frowns, and then bursts out with a laugh like I’m intensely amusing. “What are you—a child protégé?”
No one else laughs. There’s a tense awkward silence until Nadiya clears her throat. “She’s young, yes.”
“I think when I was your age I was dating my way through Brazil,” Anya adds with a laugh, glancing back at Walt.
“I’ve never been,” I respond with a tight smile.
She can sense she might have made a misstep because she waves her hand as if to say, Your feelings aren’t my problem.
“Has your art been out on the market for long?”
I shake my head. “Only recently. I graduated from RISD a few months ago.”
This does not impress her.
“You’ll excuse my surprise. It’s just that there’s a commonly held belief among artists I know that it takes time to become great at something, that your voice and purpose are cultivated slowly and an artist might not have anything worthy to say until they’ve lived enough.”
Insecurity pricks at my bones, trying to force my spine to curl, my shoulders to slouch.
She wants me to bend to her age and experience.
Walt tries to drop his hand to the small of my back, likely in a show of solidarity, but I step away. If pressed, I wouldn’t be able to pinpoint the exact reason. Maybe I’m still harboring anger about the conversation from the library. Maybe I want to stand on my own two feet when confronting a person like Anya. Regardless, the tension in our small circle suddenly becomes palpable.