Eric Fischl, designer

The poses of the nude figures in this print—the proud, open stance of the man and the crouched position of the woman—explore mainstream American attitudes toward sexuality and discomfort with the naked body. The two figures’ relationship is unclear, but the presence of the seated dog suggests a domestic space, a frequent setting in Eric Fischl’s work. The artist often begins these projects by hiring actors to pose in the roles of a dysfunctional suburban family; he then photographs them and paints from the photos. In this case, by creating the individual figures on three separate plates, he has the ability to move and overlap the figures on the page in the printing, continuing to orchestrate the arrangement of his models beyond the modeling session. His method creates a potentially endless series of open-ended, somewhat troubling narrative possibilities.