Chrome Green 1972

Adolph Gottlieb made this abstract expressionist painting titled Chrome Green, date unknown, and I'm immediately drawn to its simplicity. The red circle hangs above the canvas like a fiery sun, made of the juiciest red paint you've ever seen. It is like the memory of a sunset, or a signal. Below it, a blue blob sits like the sea, or some kind of primordial life form. It's all floating in that kind of green that is somehow both industrial and natural at the same time. Gottlieb seems to be thinking about a kind of visual language, one where shapes and colours speak directly to our guts. Kind of like Rothko, but with a slightly more playful touch, I feel like he’s asking us to imagine the space between the colours, and what might happen if they came into contact.