Untitled 1978

Conrad Marca-Relli made this, without a title, from collage and oil paint. I can imagine him building it up, piece by piece, each element finding its place through intuition as much as intention. The painting seems to be about layering, both physically and conceptually. The neutral palette and the rawness of the burlap contrast with the bold, assertive strokes of black paint, so what you get is a kind of push and pull, a conversation between control and chance. I wonder if Marca-Relli was thinking about the way forms interact, how they support or disrupt each other. There's an underlying structure, but it’s fighting against its own resolution. I love that. Like with Guston, you feel this painting could keep changing, keep evolving, and isn’t that the point? Paintings never really resolve themselves anyway; each one leads to another, feeding into this endless dialogue between artists across time. It’s all an exchange, a shared exploration of what paint can do and what it can mean.