Blue Painting 2002

Here is what I might say about Joseph Marioni’s Blue Painting. Imagine Marioni in the studio with his big squeegee, pushing that blue around, again, and again, until he got just the right resonance. I can feel the push and pull of the material, the way the paint must have dragged and resisted, creating this subtly mottled surface. The paint isn’t thick, but it’s dense. I wonder, did he have other blues underneath? Did he wipe them away? This kind of all-over field of color comes from the legacy of someone like Barnett Newman, but with a twist. It’s less about grand existential statements and more about the nitty-gritty of paint itself, like what happens when you drag a tool across a surface. It’s a generous gesture, like saying, "Hey, look what paint can do!" Artists are always riffing off each other, you know? They build on what came before, keep the conversation going. Painting is not dead, it’s just talking in its own weird language.