Indian Summer 1967

Helen Frankenthaler made this unstretched canvas painting titled ‘Indian Summer’ with oil paint. There's something so great about the simplicity of it, just these horizontal blocks of colour. She’s not trying to trick you into seeing anything, but more about letting the paint do its thing, like a dance across the canvas. The way the colours sit next to each other is really striking, and the boundaries are so soft it’s as if they’re breathing. I love how the paint isn’t overworked; you can still see the texture of the canvas underneath, which gives it this raw, immediate feeling. The colour palette in ‘Indian Summer’ reminds me a little of Sean Scully’s colour blocking, but Frankenthaler has a lightness and fluidity that’s all her own. Both artists create something new by letting the materials speak for themselves. Art should be a conversation, not a lecture, right?