Untitled 1953

This untitled painting, by Guido Molinari, is pure, unadulterated paint. Look at those marks! The artist must have been standing right in front of the canvas, wrestling with the stuff of painting. I imagine Molinari, brush loaded, pushing and pulling, until these forms emerged. There’s a real exuberance to the color here. It’s thick, you can almost feel the luscious texture. See how that stroke of green arcs across the surface? It’s so alive. The brushwork is gestural, almost like a dance, and it speaks to something deep and raw. You can see an ongoing conversation with artists like Joan Mitchell and Willem de Kooning. These painters are constantly inspiring each other’s creativity across time. Painting is embodied expression; it embraces ambiguity and uncertainty and has multiple interpretations.