Soldier

<p>Luc Tuymans’s quiet, elegiac paintings, copied from old photographs or newspaper illustrations, draw upon the act of remembrance and the function of collective memory. Describing his process, Tuymans explained, &quot;I usually finish [a painting] in a single day, partly in order not to lose my concentration and partly in order to have the chance not to come too close to the image I am using as my model.&quot; Often his canvases refer to his experience growing up in Belgium, a country ravaged by war and haunted by its history of colonial oppression in Africa and Asia. Based on a photograph of a World War I soldier, this work is a haunting, strangely ambiguous partial portrait that suggests that the history of war is more forgotten than remembered.</p>