Untitled 1939

Charles G. Shaw painted this untitled piece on board, and what strikes me is the colour and composition. It’s got this sort of plum-mauve background and the way Shaw layers these geometric shapes creates a sense of depth and movement. I can imagine him carefully applying each layer, maybe stepping back to assess the balance, pushing and pulling the composition until it felt just right. It makes me think about the conversation all painters are having with each other through time, like this one, with its cracked white impasto encircled with yellow—such a perfect foil to the plum ground. The thin dark lines, like needles, or rays, pin down the shapes, making something cosmic out of something domestic. There's an ongoing exchange of ideas across time, inspiring one another’s creativity. Painting is a form of embodied expression which embraces ambiguity, allowing for multiple interpretations and meaning over fixed or definitive readings.