Untitled 1971

Ray Parker made this untitled painting with acrylic on canvas, and you can see it's a dance of shapes and colours, right? I imagine him, brush in hand, maybe stepping back, squinting, then diving back in. The yellow diamond feels solid, bold against the light blue. Then these dark amoeba-like forms hovering above, a squiggly white line, and a red meandering shape down the side. I can see him adjusting, reacting, like a conversation between colours. You know, when you look at a painting like this, it's easy to think, ‘Oh, I could do that.’ But it's not just about the shapes or colours themselves. It's about the relationships between them. Like, how that intense yellow makes the blue sing, or how the black anchors the whole composition. I've made paintings in a similar style, where you're sort of finding a way to make a whole out of parts. Painters are always looking at each other, borrowing ideas, riffing off what came before. And that's the beauty of it all, isn't it?