Last week, to coincide with her exhibition at the Barbican in London, I hosted a conversation about Alice Neel between the artists Chantal Joffe and Christina Kimeze. We were analysing Spanish Party (1938) when Kimeze pointed out something simple the rest of us might have missed. What at first seems like a party scene is, on closer inspection, about parent/child dynamics: each streak of fluorescent colour highlights the visibility of the children in the picture. “That makes them impossible to ignore,” Kimeze said. “You have these adults trying to have a good time, but they look miserable, like they’re going through the motions – the children are still awake! Spanish Party speaks to the complexities of trying to still do what you want after having children – the things you used to do but that just aren’t the same.”
