To me it is a rather sad and cold painting. The white figure with the black mask and the black figure with the white mask are silent and isolated. There is no communication whatsoever. These people become things and are interchangeable with the lifeless objects. It is difficult in a reproduction of this painting to distinguish between what is a painted object and the attached found objects. There is a painted rose as well as a plastic rose; a painted white label and a plastic orange tag, and so forth. What I am saying is that a rose is a rose but sometimes not a rose…. there are some things we can be sure of and other things not. I reworked this painting over an extended period, hence the 8 underlying the 1974 in the bottom right corner.