Série du je…..ouf 2009

Francois Arnal made this abstract watercolor painting, titled "Série du je…..ouf," with a playful spirit, somewhere, sometime. Just look at the splatters of red and turquoise and the confident strokes of black that dance across the surface! I can imagine Arnal in his studio, maybe even outdoors, letting the paint drip and flow with joyful abandon. The title itself, "Série du je…..ouf," hints at a kind of performative exploration—like a painterly exclamation. I wonder if he was thinking of Miro when he made this? There’s an improvisational quality to the piece, a lightness of touch that feels very intuitive. It is a reminder of the spontaneous joy that can come from simply making marks on a surface. And that’s what painting is all about, really: one artist having a conversation with another across time and space.