Yellow Abstract 1961

Victor Pasmore made this painting called "Yellow Abstract," in which the making feels both careful and intuitive, like a dance between intention and accident. I mean, look at the way he's built up the surface! There's this big, yummy, kind of caramel-colored form that dominates the canvas, and around it, these crisp white spaces edged with almost architectural black lines. The caramel shape is opaque, dense – you can really feel the weight of it. But then, above, a whisper of pale blue, like a distant memory of sky. That single vertical line, bisecting the composition, adds a touch of the unexpected, like a rogue thought interrupting a well-rehearsed speech. Pasmore reminds me a bit of someone like Agnes Martin, in the way he uses abstraction to evoke a sense of calm and contemplation, although his work is more grounded, more earthy. It's a reminder that painting is always a conversation, a back-and-forth between artists across time.