Untitled #2 1973

John Berkey made this painting, Untitled #2, with oil paint and a real sense of space oddity. Look at that big, kind of mushroom-shaped planet – how was it made? I can imagine Berkey starting with washes of blue and then adding those dabs of color, like the planet’s got a rash or something. Then comes this spaceship balancing on top of the planet, a crazy balancing act! I wonder if Berkey was thinking about all the sci-fi novels he read or maybe just riffing on some other old-school painters like Yves Tanguy. He probably didn’t want to make anything too clear; the idea is more about feeling lost in the cosmos than mapping out any specific world. That drippy paint on the side reminds me that artists are always in dialogue with each other, even across genres. It’s like we’re all just remixing the same old human feelings.