The Passion Flower 1986

Victor Pasmore made this painting, called ‘The Passion Flower’, with watercolor and ink, and you can feel how intuitive it was to make. I'm picturing Pasmore in the studio letting those washes of blue bleed into each other. A happy accident? Maybe. I like the way the shapes hover, like the dark clouds of the subconscious, heavy and pregnant with feeling. And the little green circle with the ink line – it’s like a thought bubble, or a seed of an idea about to sprout. This piece reminds me of Joan Miró’s playful, almost childlike forms, but with a distinctly British reserve. There’s a conversation happening here about how we can distill the world into its most essential shapes and colors. What does it mean to capture the essence of a passion flower with just a few blobs and lines? Artists are always riffing off each other, it’s an ongoing jam session across time and space.