Ocean Park #21 1969

Richard Diebenkorn made Ocean Park #21, a painting with oil on canvas, and it feels like an unfolding, a becoming. The colors are quiet but insistent, like faded beach houses baking in the California sun. The texture is subtle, but you can sense the layers. Diebenkorn wasn't afraid to let the history of the painting show through, and you can see the ghosts of previous marks and decisions. Notice the lower left, where there is a small blue square that gives a point of grounding and focus. The lines aren't quite straight, the colors aren't quite true, and yet there’s a sense of perfect balance. I see a bit of Agnes Martin in Diebenkorn's work. Like Martin, he used the grid as a starting point, but he wasn't afraid to disrupt it, to let the painting breathe and evolve organically. Both artists remind us that art is a process, not a product, and that the most interesting things often happen in the spaces between.