Confrontation

With its half-demolished wall, odd configuration of poles, hula-hoop--like ring, and distant vista of calm water and low mountains, Confrontation presents an incongruous and unsettling image.

But something is familiar about the scene; a quality of déjà vu provokes memories of difficult personal encounters. We assume a connection between the two young women yet it is impossible to know the reason for their estrangement. Throughout his life, Lee-Smith explored the themes of the human condition and the wedges—social, individual, and racial—that thwart human interaction. But in Confrontation, Lee-Smith introduced a sense of possibility. The crumbling wall that separates the women from the landscape is not an insurmountable barrier; the serene world beyond is accessible by skirting boundaries.