Untitled 1970

This untitled painting is by Manabu Mabe. Just look at those gestural marks and the brooding palette – it makes me think about how the artist started out and how the whole thing gradually shifted and emerged through a process of trial, error, and intuition. I sympathize with Mabe! I can imagine him thinking: “How do I want to make my mark, here?” The paint looks kind of thin, so he may have worked on this canvas over time, adding layers, and scraping some off. That big swathe of black, anchored in the centre – it has this looming presence. But that slash of orange across the middle kind of grounds the whole thing, doesn’t it? Like a horizon line in the storm. I mean, that’s what I see. But you might see something completely different! Painters are always talking to each other. In a way, it is like we are all in the same big room bouncing ideas off one another, across time. Like, the way he handled that black paint feels linked to the way Kline did in his paintings. It's all about embodied expression – embracing ambiguity and uncertainty, allowing for multiple interpretations.