Untitled [plate IX] 1958

Joan Miró made this untitled print with a lovely palette of primary colours, plus green and brown, in his characteristic biomorphic style. I like to imagine Miró working on this print, maybe he’s shuffling around in his studio, listening to music, and just letting these shapes come out of his subconscious. He's pulling images from dreams, or maybe just riffing on the shapes he sees in everyday life. There’s a playfulness to the arrangement that makes you think he's experimenting with how colours and forms balance one another. I’m drawn to the long red vertical mark, with its almost textured appearance. It is a stabilising force in the image against the other more playful elements, and yet it has some cartoonish shapes looming around it like strange insects. It reminds me a little of Kandinsky, and how he used abstract forms to express emotion. Like any good painting, it invites you to bring your own associations to the table.