Untitled (Help Wanted Full Page) 1994

Stephen Dean made this artwork, Untitled (Help Wanted Full Page), using watercolor and newspaper, and it’s all about process, I think. It's one of those pieces where the materiality really grabs you, you know? The thinness of the watercolor against the starkness of the newspaper creates this layered experience. The newspaper print peeks through the translucent blue like faded memories, each section is a slightly different shade. It feels like he might have used a big, soft brush, just soaking the paper, letting the color bleed and blend. Look closely, and you can almost feel the water soaking into the page. There’s one spot, near the bottom left, where the blue is particularly dense, almost opaque. It’s like a little anchor in this sea of text and color. It reminds me a little of Blinky Palermo, the way he used color to create these subtle, almost meditative experiences. Art is like one big conversation! It is full of ambiguity.