Orange Painting 2005

Joseph Marioni gave us this Orange Painting, and I want to know, did he squeeze every last drop of orange from some giant citrus fruit? Okay, so it's paint. But what kind of paint? It feels thin, almost watery, like watercolor stretched to its absolute limit. I can see Marioni, standing back, maybe tilting the canvas to let that color run just so, coaxing it into a perfect, sun-drenched field. The edges are so important here. Look how they're not quite perfect, not mechanical. That slight unevenness gives the whole thing a pulse, a sense of the hand. It feels like Marioni’s talking to the Minimalists, but also saying, hey, color is emotion, color is experience. We’re all in conversation, us artists, across time. Painting is all about keeping that conversation open, embracing the questions, not just the answers.