New Delhi surplombée 1982

Pierre Alechinsky made this painting, “New Delhi surplombée,” using gestural marks and a palette of earthy greens, browns, and blacks. I can almost see him now, wrestling with the canvas, layering images, trying things out, making mistakes and discoveries. It’s like he’s conjuring a whole world, a kind of surreal dreamscape. The paint looks pretty thin, almost watery in places, which gives it a flowing, ethereal quality. Look at the way he uses these bold, black outlines to define shapes – faces, figures, writhing forms that could be plants or maybe even snakes. I wonder what he was thinking when he painted this? Maybe he was inspired by a trip to India, or maybe it’s more of an internal landscape. There's something about this piece that reminds me of other CoBrA artists like Asger Jorn and Karel Appel, who were all about spontaneity and raw expression. It’s like they’re having a conversation across time and space, bouncing ideas off each other, pushing the boundaries of what painting can be. It is a testament to the ongoing dialogue between artists, inspiring creativity and offering multiple paths for interpretation.