Untitled 1992

This untitled work on paper, by Jill Levine, is a world of free-floating forms, painted in watery blues and reds. Looking at it, I can imagine Levine building up these shapes, one on top of another, figuring it out as she went along, shifting and improvising. I wonder what she was thinking, arranging these bulbous forms? Were they meant to suggest something recognizable, or were they just about the play of color and shape against the white of the paper? There's something wonderfully ambiguous about the scale and arrangement of these biomorphic forms. It’s like seeing a magnified detail or a distant constellation. The paint is thin and translucent, allowing the whiteness of the paper to peek through, creating a luminous effect. The red shapes have these incredible moments of intensity, pulling forward, almost jumping off the surface. It reminds me of the work of Forrest Bess, another painter who worked intuitively, creating his own personal cosmology through abstract forms. It's all one big conversation, right? We're all just riffing off each other, trying to make sense of the world through paint.