Abstraction 1965

Karlo Zvirynsky made this compelling oil on canvas, Abstraction, sometime in his studio. It's got that lovely dark palette, punctuated by ghostly whites and blues. It's the kind of painting that emerges slowly, built up through layers. I can imagine Zvirynsky squinting at it, maybe tilting his head, adding a dab of paint here, scraping away there. There’s a dialogue happening, the artist responding, almost in real time. Look at that rectangular form on the left – feels like a structural element, a building perhaps. And then there's that floating orb on the right—maybe it's a sun, or just a blob of feeling. You know, making a painting like this, there's a push and pull between intention and accident. The paint has a skin and a depth that is both alluring and complex. I think Zvirynsky knew that. It's a reminder that painting is really an embodied conversation, with a history, with each other.