Albers Light 2000

David Michael Hinnebusch made Albers Light, a 122 x 122 cm painting, with what looks like a real mix of materials and approaches, all about the making. The surface has this built-up, collaged quality, almost like a wall with layers of posters peeling away. There are blocks of color and line, these big, gestural marks in black that seem to hold the whole thing together, but also cut across the composition to create tension. I can see how the title relates to Albers, with its focus on color and how it shifts and interacts, but also in the way it sets up a kind of grid. Look at the bottom left, you can see how the paint is scrubbed and layered, almost like a conversation happening between the colors. It reminds me a bit of Cy Twombly’s work, that same sense of history and process, like the painting is a record of its own making, full of doubt, accidents and pentimento. It is a kind of controlled chaos, where nothing is ever really finished.