Red, Blue 1969

John Hoyland made this print, Red, Blue, at some point in his career. Look at the way he approaches mark-making: those rectangles of color so clearly defined, sitting against the sketchier background. You can almost feel the artist deciding, in the moment, how much to reveal, how much to leave as raw process. The materiality is what really grabs me, especially the contrast between that solid blue and red, and the scratchy, almost distressed grey above. It’s not just color; it’s about surface. Those clean edges between the colored blocks are disrupted by the ragged yellow and red lines, reminding you it’s all just paint, pigment pushed around on a surface. Look at the top of the grey area, where you can almost see the individual strokes of the brush, like tentative rain. For me, Hoyland's work sits in a really interesting place in the ongoing conversation around abstract painting. It reminds me of Sean Scully, with its interest in color, form and surface. Like Scully, Hoyland shows how art embraces ambiguity, refusing any single, fixed meaning.