Untitled 1984

This painting, made by Sam Francis, is a wild splash of ultramarine and orange, alive with gestural energy. I can almost feel him there, the painter, pushing and pulling the paint across the surface, maybe with a brush, maybe something else entirely, allowing it to drip and pool, building up a strange kind of pictorial space. The paint is thick, juicy, almost edible. I keep thinking how the orange slash cuts through the blue, and how the colours vibrate against each other – it's like a visual argument, or a dance. I can imagine Sam Francis, moving around the canvas, maybe lost in thought, maybe just in the moment, but definitely present and engaged with the physical act of painting. Painting is like this embodied conversation across time. Each artist picks up where the last one left off, and somehow, in the process, they discover something new, something unexpected, about themselves and the world around them.