Untitled 1988

Sam Francis made this untitled painting with color and a sense of play. It’s all about process. Just look at that surface: it’s alive! The paint is thin in places, so it drips and bleeds. Then, elsewhere, there are these juicy splatters and thick globs of color, like he's really loading the brush and flinging it around. The black lines dance across the canvas, leading your eye in circles. There’s one bright yellow splash in the middle that seems to anchor the whole composition, and it gets me right in the gut. Francis reminds me a bit of Joan Mitchell, with that same love for color and gesture. Both artists leave room for ambiguity, inviting us to bring our own interpretations to the party.