Untitled 1962

Luchita Hurtado made this watercolor, all blues, and it feels like an unfolding. The colors seem to breathe like they were coaxed into being. The image emerges like an apparition, an X-ray, or a memory. It's like she's teaching the water to find its own way, right? There's this flow, but also this structure, and I can feel her hand in it, guiding, but not controlling. I bet she was so patient. When I look at this, I imagine her feeling the pull of the earth, the push of the sky, and then just letting it all come out. It's not just an image; it's like a record of her thinking, feeling, living. And it puts me in mind of Agnes Martin, of Hilma af Klint—all these women who found something beyond the seen world, and tried to get it down. It's like we're all just talking to each other, across time, in paint.