8 July 2023
"I have been contemplating this strange portrait for several years now. It operates at multiple levels, each deepening the others to complete the statement of the painting overall.
First let’s examine the painting as a story: A woman and her four sons, lit by soft frontal portrait light, stand outside against a fading evening sky, the peach horizon visible at the edges of the composition.
It is possible to impute traces of a narrative to this family. The sons are of at least two distinct ethnicities. Therefore there are at least two fathers involved. And yet, no fathers appear in the family portrait. For the purpose of the story Holland is telling, the fathers are absent from the family. This yields a matriarch and her sons."