No. 22 1948

Mark Rothko made No. 22 with oil on canvas, and what strikes me is the physical act of painting, the shifting and emerging, the trial and error that Rothko embraced. Sympathizing with the artist, I imagine him layering these colours, a kind of gray, blue, brown, pink, and green – a slightly acidic palette – one on top of the other. I wonder, was Rothko thinking about color theory or was he just feeling his way through it? I imagine him stepping back, squinting, adding a bit more here, scraping off a bit there, until he arrived at this composition. Look at how he's dragged the paint across the surface, leaving these subtle textures and edges. It’s a very thin paint, almost like watercolor, which adds to the overall feeling of softness and light. I think of other painters who were also exploring color and form, like Milton Avery or even Forrest Bess. They're all in conversation, pushing and pulling at the boundaries of what painting can be. Painting is an ongoing conversation, an exchange of ideas across time. It’s about feeling, intention, and embracing ambiguity.