Pan sits beside a window rather than posing against a neutral portrait ground. Interior and exterior, artist and reflected world, Paris and remembered China are held within one constructed frame. The window provides light, but it also makes distance visible.
The work was made near the end of the Second World War, after years of occupation and disrupted travel. Pan's self-image is neither triumphant nor passive. She occupies her studio as a professional site, using the painted architecture to claim thoughtfulness, labor, and duration.
