Relation 1966

This is Camille Graeser’s painting, and you know, with its clean lines and blocks of color, it’s probably oil on canvas or board. I’m imagining him carefully taping off each section, a meditative act. How do we find a “relation” between colors? Well, for Graeser it seems like it’s about setting them up to play off each other – the cool teal against the warm red, the sunny yellow against the serious grays and blues. It’s like they’re having a conversation, but what are they saying? I can see echoes of Josef Albers’ color studies here, that same interest in how colors behave when they're placed next to each other. But Graeser brings his own vibe – a kind of quiet, Swiss precision. And that reminds me that we artists are all in this big conversation, riffing off each other, trying to figure out what color can do, what feeling it can evoke. It’s like a never-ending game of telephone, but with paint.