Squeeze is a small oil painting by Verity Coward, embracing chaos, movement, and defies rules. In this work, as in much of her practice, Coward distances herself from recognisable imagery, creating a swirling composition of roughly suggested forms that seem to reference both artifical, geometric structures and landscape or organic, natural elements. The brushstrokes are not refined but hinted at, leaving the surface lively and unsettled, to suggest movement and transition.

Drawn from her temporary papier-mâché models, the elements in Squeeze wobble to form what feels like a portal into Coward’s own unstable world full of possibilities. Somewhere between the tones of artificial objects and the colours of soil and stone, the earthy, muted hues draw the viewer in her universe, grounding the abstracted forms.

The work plays with the traditions of landscape painting, leaving the viewer in a space of ambiguity. This deliberate incomprehensibility speaks to the tragicomic illogicality of the human condition, a recurring theme in Coward’s work.