怡红 2020

王新福 made this painting called 怡红 and it’s like a garden bursting into life with a palette knife. The texture jumps right out at you! It’s not just paint on canvas, it’s an event! The colours are all swirled together in little peaks and troughs, like icing on some crazy cake. The way the colours mash together suggests a real physical struggle to get things just so, like a painter really working it out on the canvas. Look at the creamy whites and reds, how they're thrown into the mix with greens and browns. There's a section at the top, a little patch of blue, which gives the whole thing some extra zing. It's like the artist is saying, "Here's the sky, here's the earth, now let's make something new happen in between." This reminds me of Joan Mitchell, not in how it looks, but in that same spirit of just letting the paint do its thing. It's all about the process, and about embracing whatever happens along the way.