In 1929 Natalia Goncharova says to Marina Tsvetaeva about her practice of creating remakes “...It’s not because I want to do them again and again, it’s because I wan to do them completely - to be done and over with them, to get rid of them...in the purest sense of the phrase."

She can’t bear an unfinished narrative, inaccuracy , half truths so she keeps working it out until she has resolution. When she looks at a thing she made earlier and sees that the story it tells is no longer true she has to do it again. This is her practice, the pursuit of truth. Remember too that she lived her entire life in the West surrounded by many of the large oil paintings she had done in Russia. Haunted by ghosts, in order to free herself of their hold over her, she creates a new version, an updated story, putting the past to rest.

Perhaps this is the ultimate remake, the self portrait. She looks at herself (literally because this work was with her in Paris) as she was in 1907 in the painting ‘Self Portrait in a Traditional Costume’ (Tretyakov) and sees a girl who no longer exists. She is strong and full of life and energy and at the beginning of her life’s journey. Her left hand is across her waist holding a small leafy sprig of some kind. Despite the obvious latent power of her hand, she grasps the sprig gently and with grace. Nature as inspiration and partner.

By contrast is the remake which comes from the 1930s or later. For me it is one of the most sorrowful things I’ve seen. It is a portrait of the harrowing effects of her own life lived. It is the polar opposite of the earlier work. All the fullness of life is now drained from her. Her hand is gone and the sprig, now vertically oriented, is more like a stick of razors. Has it gashed her exposed collar bone? It’s just so, so sad and yet there is great beauty. Is it the paint or the color itself which is saturated and vivid and seems to drip or melt down? She is still a perceptible presence. Wonderful.

What would you do living surrounded by your works from the past? It’s interesting that her instinct was to correct or continue the storyline with updated works rather than to chuck all the old stuff in the bin and forget about it. It’s almost like her deep sense of respect for tradition or history wouldn’t let her...or something. What do you think?