TEXT: <p>Rendered in soft, pale creams, ochers and greens, and loose, expressive brushstrokes, this oil painting — which measures four feet tall and almost five feet wide — features two separate people – both apparently Caucasian – sitting in an open room with high ceilings. A grid of square glass windows to our immediate left reveals hints of the outside world. In the rear, a series of larger receding square panels, which comprise the room's far wall, are suffused with a hazy light. Dressed in an orange sweater and with a head of dark brown hair, the titular figure sits near us at a minimally defined table, centered in the bottom half of the canvas, head down as if reading. A second figure, dressed in a mustard yellow shirt, sits further away on our right, head up, but with features even less detailed than the first.</p>