LE BLÉ (CORN FESTIVAL) 1954

Alice Rahon's "Le Blé (Corn Festival)" is a celebration of color and form, made with oil on canvas. The warm palette, dominated by yellows and greens, dances across the canvas, embodying a sense of joyous energy. Up close, you'll notice the layers of paint, built up in thin, translucent washes and more impastoed textures that gives a real sense of the process. Look at the myriad small marks like hatching, scumbling, and dabs, scattered across the surface that seem to suggest movement and rhythm. It’s like Rahon's hand was in constant conversation with the canvas. There's a real kinship here with someone like Remedios Varo, with that same impulse to create a world of mysterious signs and symbols that are all her own, but where Varo's paintings have a real tightness and precision to them, Rahon's are all about the brush. It's a reminder that art is not just about what we see, but how we see, and that maybe fixed meanings are overrated anyway.