Cannonball 1969

Gene Davis made Cannonball with paint, whenever. It's a painting made of vertical stripes, a marching band of colors playing across the canvas. These aren’t the bold, declarative stripes of, say, a Bridget Riley; instead, they're muted, almost whispering. Look closely, and you'll see how each stripe has its own texture. Davis isn't trying to hide the handmade nature of the thing. It's right there on the surface, a testament to the simple act of applying paint to canvas. The density of the central brown-orange stripes is a good example of this. They're like a field of wheat and this makes other colors sing out as a result. He's like a more subtle Kenneth Noland, who had a similar approach to color. It all comes down to this: Painting is as much about the making as it is about the seeing. It’s all process.