Looking for the mother 2010

Louise Bourgeois created this watercolor and ink artwork on paper, with washes of red and a splodge of intense dark blue. I can imagine the painting emerging slowly, first the flowing, light red which defines the form, and then the sharper marks of blue and black. I sympathize with Bourgeois because it is a deeply personal piece. It speaks to something fundamental in her creative process, a kind of digging down and excavation of feelings. The marks are fragile yet determined, that shape of the body, made of the thinnest of washes. The strange little black marks almost feel like an after-thought, but so present. You see these forms echoed in the work of other artists, like Philip Guston, who was also obsessed with the body. In the end, it is the physicality of paint which captures feelings, which embodies them. What Bourgeois has done here is invite us into a space of ongoing questioning rather than fixity.