Amber Pan c. 1941

Chris Makrenos made this captivating drawing of an amber pan, but the date is unknown. The amber hues, they’re not just colors, right? They’re a feeling, a mood. It’s like how you can look at a Rothko and get totally lost in the color field. Look at the way Makrenos layers the colors. It’s almost like watercolor, but there's something else going on here. It's a dance between transparency and opacity. I can feel the way Makrenos moves their hand across the paper. That signature right there, see it? It's small, but it’s there. It’s like the artist is saying, "Yeah, I made this." And in a way, that's all art is, a record of someone making something, and then us looking at it and trying to figure out what it all means. Like Morandi, maybe?