Mexico HUA HUA 1983

This is Sean Scully's 'Mexico HUA HUA', made in 1983, using watercolor on paper. The stacked blocks of color, blue on one side, red and gray on the other, feel almost like a flag, but softened, blurred. I can imagine Scully working on this, the paper buckling slightly under the wetness of the watercolor, the colors bleeding into each other. Maybe he was thinking about Agnes Martin, or maybe he was just trying to find a way to make a solid form dissolve into feeling. The texture is what gets me: you can almost feel the grain of the paper. The colors are muted, but there's a real energy in the way he's applied the paint. It’s like he's trying to capture a fleeting moment, a memory, or a feeling that's just out of reach. There's a generosity here. It feels like he’s inviting us to join him in his search. He's in conversation with painters that came before him, trying to figure out what painting can still do.