Untitled 1961

This untitled piece was made by Alfred Leslie in New York City in 1961, seemingly with a mix of paint and collage. I can imagine him layering these bold colors—yellow, black, white, and blue—building up the composition in a way that feels both deliberate and spontaneous. I wonder what Leslie was thinking as he placed each shape, each color, onto the surface. It's almost as if he was constructing a world from these simple forms, like a child building with blocks. You can see where the paper has been torn, not cut, giving the work a rough-and-ready, tactile quality. It reminds me of other artists who were pushing the boundaries of painting at that time, people like Robert Motherwell, who was a master of balancing control and chance in his work. Looking at this piece, you get the feeling that painting is a conversation, that artists are always responding to what came before, and trying to push things forward. It’s full of possibility and a reminder that art is an ongoing experiment, an exploration of what it means to see and feel and be in the world.