Lou Posner: The Interface Between Life and Art
Inspired by a photograph of a Somali mother and her son, Young Somali Artist became one of Posner's most deeply personal paintings, although he did not initially recognize its significance. Posner added the art materials to the original photographic composition, placing brushes and a painter's palette in the hands of the young boy. Against the stark landscape, the figures suggest both hardship and the sustaining possibilities of artistic expression. Posner worked on the painting for an extended period, carefully developing its composition and details. Sometime after completing the painting, he came to recognize its deeply personal significance. He told his wife that, without consciously intending it, he had painted something about himself and his own mother, who had died. Like the Somali mother in the painting, his mother had encouraged his artistic interests from an early age and provided him with art materials. What
began as a painting inspired by a photograph of strangers had become, unexpectedly, a tribute to his own mother and her belief in his artistic abilities. Partially obscured by the mother's figure, an inscription on the background wall contains fragments of the Latin maxim Ars longa, vita brevis—“Art is long, life is short.” One of Posner's favorite quotations, which he also displayed on the wall of his studio, the inscription introduces another dimension to the painting: the enduring nature of art even as human life is fleeting. Posner's own description was characteristically brief: “The painting says it all.”