Still Life with Fish 1983

Petros Malayan made this still life, probably in his studio, with paint that’s thin, like watercolor, but not quite. It feels immediate, worked on and resolved in one sitting. I can imagine him, squinting, stepping back, and then leaning in again, trying to get the relationships between those objects just right. There's a great loose energy in the brushstrokes, especially in the way the light bounces off the fish. I love the unexpected splash of orange and green in the bowl. This kind of work always reminds me that painting is an act of seeing and feeling, just as much as it is about rendering. You can sense the artist grappling with the challenge of capturing something real, something true about the world, but also about themselves. It makes me think of other painters who love to paint still lives, like Morandi, each one in their own way is trying to figure things out. And isn't that what art is all about anyway?