Ottmann places Honor Titus’s paintings in the tradition of intimist European and American painting, focusing on Bourgeoisie in Bloom, a series about debutante and cotillion balls. He reads the work as both a celebration of social acceptance and a quiet reminder of racial oppression. Through decorative, cinematic scenes of everyday life, he argues, Titus unites ethics and aesthetics, grounding art in the moral tension between abstraction and figuration.