Space Figures - Robert Lohman, c. 1974

In Space Figures, Robert Lohman constructs a world almost entirely from the human body. There is very little traditional setting, and what background remains is mostly created through patches of crosshatching, patterned surfaces, and the spaces left between the figures. We are not looking into a room or across a recognizable landscape. Instead, Lohman asks us to move through a field of bodies that operate as both subjects and environment.

The central female figure holds the composition together. Her body begins near the upper middle and extends diagonally toward the lower right, creating one long, continuous movement. Her torso is full and carefully defined, but her lower body stretches beyond natural proportions, becoming almost architectural. The elongated leg gives the figure a sense of weightlessness while also dividing the composition into upper and lower zones.

Her pose is sensual, but it does not feel arranged for a viewer in the manner of a conventional reclining nude. She appears to be drifting, falling, or moving through a space without a fixed direction. The tilted head and loose extension of the body suggest surrender rather than performance. Lohman allows her anatomy to remain recognizable while pushing it just far enough that she begins to feel otherworldly.

At the lower left, another nude figure reclines across a patterned form that might be a cushion, drapery, plant life, or simply an abstract structure supporting the body. This figure is presented more horizontally and feels heavier than the central form. Her bent arm and relaxed posture suggest rest, creating a quieter counterpoint to the central figure’s sweeping movement.

The contrast between these two bodies is important. One seems grounded, while the other appears to float. Together, they establish the tension at the heart of the work: the human body remains physical and sensual, but the space around it no longer behaves according to ordinary rules.

Additional figures appear throughout the image, each treated differently. At the upper left, a smaller seated nude seems to occupy her own pocket of space. Her body is compressed and viewed from an unusual angle, while the textured form behind her reads as a scroll or newspaper. Lohman gives just enough information to make the figure readable without closing off other possibilities.

At the upper right, a larger partial body enters the composition from outside the frame. We see a rounded torso, bent limbs, and a turned head, but the figure is cropped before it can become fully understandable. This partial presence reinforces the idea that the image continues beyond its borders. The figures we see may be only one section of a much larger gathering.

The smaller forms near the lower right add another layer of scale. They appear almost miniature when compared with the central body, suggesting distance even though the composition has no conventional perspective. Lohman uses scale emotionally rather than realistically. Large figures feel immediate and encompassing; small figures feel removed, remembered, or observed from another plane.

This shifting scale is one of the reasons the title Space Figures feels so fitting. Space is not simply represented through stars or planetary imagery. It is created by the changing relationship between bodies and with nature. One figure can feel close enough to touch while another seems to exist far away, even when their outlines nearly meet.

The work’s 1974 date offers a useful historical context. The Apollo lunar missions had recently ended, but space remained central to American culture through science, television, architecture, and popular imagination. Artists did not have to depict rockets or planets to respond to that moment. Space could represent freedom from gravity, the possibility of other worlds, or a new way of thinking about the human body.

Lohman’s response is especially interesting because he rejects the clean, technological imagery often associated with the Space Age. There are no polished machines, control panels, or heroic astronauts. The world of Space Figures is organic, sensual, and almost primitive through its naturalistic imagry. The human figure remains the central vehicle through which the unknown is explored.

In this sense, the work suggests that entering space is not only a technological achievement but also a psychological one. Freed from the usual boundaries of earth, rooms, furniture, and perspective, the body can be reconsidered. It can stretch, rotate, overlap, and exist at several scales at once.

The figures also carry a dreamlike quality. Dreams often collapse distance and allow people, places, and memories to occupy the same space without explanation. Lohman’s arrangement works in a similar way. The reclining woman, the arched central nude, and the smaller surrounding figures may belong to a shared scene, but they could just as easily represent different memories or emotional states layered together.

Lohman avoids giving the figures a clear narrative relationship. They do not appear to converse, and their gazes do not create an obvious chain of interaction. Their connection is primarily physical and compositional. One body curves into another; a hand reaches across a patterned surface; a leg passes through an area occupied by another figure. The bodies communicate through shape rather than gesture.

The fine linework gives the print a delicacy that helps balance the density of the composition. Lohman moves between clean contour, dotted passages, tightly worked crosshatching, and areas left almost untouched. These changes in texture keep the overlapping figures from becoming visually flat.

Some sections are rendered with considerable detail, especially the hair, textiles, floral motifs, and patterned supports. Other parts of the anatomy are described with only a few lines. This uneven finish feels intentional. It creates the impression that certain figures are becoming solid while others are fading or passing through the scene.

The decorative passages are also important. The patterned areas beneath and behind the bodies prevent the print from becoming a simple study of the nude. They suggest plants, fabrics, feathers, and imagined terrain without resolving into any one thing. The result is a space that feels both natural and invented.

Within Lohman’s broader catalog, Space Figures fits his long-running interest in transforming the human body without fully abandoning it. Even when his figures become abstracted, they retain their emotional and physical appeal. Lohman does not distort anatomy to make it grotesque for its own sake. He stretches and rearranges the figure because conventional proportions cannot fully express the world he wants to create.

This separates the work from the sharper political tension found in Surveillance and Watchers. Those works use fragmented figures to communicate paranoia, observation, and psychological pressure. Space Figures uses similar freedom with anatomy but arrives at a very different feeling. Here, fragmentation becomes expansive rather than threatening.

The work also shows the range of Lohman’s black-and-white practice. Without relying on color, he creates depth through scale, pattern, movement, and density. The restrained palette allows the eye to focus on the rhythm of the bodies and the way each form passes into the next.

There is an erotic quality to the composition, but it feels tied to freedom and physical presence rather than seduction alone. The figures are comfortable in their nudity and unbound by the usual rules of presentation. They are neither heroic nor ashamed. They simply exist within Lohman’s strange, open universe.

Ultimately, Space Figures imagines the body as something capable of moving beyond ordinary limits. Lohman creates a space where figures can float without explanation, where scale can shift without distance, and where several bodies can occupy the same visual field without competing for control. The work feels both sensual and cosmic—a gathering of human forms set loose from the world we know.