Sea Phantoms 1952

William Baziotes made this moody painting, Sea Phantoms, with oil on canvas. You can see he’s playing with dark blues, grays, and blacks, creating an underwater dreamscape. I imagine Baziotes in his studio, wrestling with the canvas, layering the paint, letting shapes emerge from the gloom. It's like he’s coaxing these phantoms out of the depths. Those dark, curling forms at the bottom feel like seaweed or maybe tentacles, reaching up. And then there's this glowing orb with fine white lines shooting out of it. Is it a sea creature, or a strange star? Baziotes was part of the Abstract Expressionist movement, so he was hanging out with the likes of Rothko and Pollock. But he had his own thing going on, a kind of biomorphic abstraction. This piece really speaks to that. It's not quite recognizable, but it feels like something alive, something just beyond our grasp. It reminds you that painting is a journey, not a destination.