Untitled 1981

This untitled piece by Pedro Coronel, made with who-knows-what, possibly oil or acrylic, maybe even tempera, is a real head-scratcher in the best way possible. The way he’s layered these pinks and reds, its like he's building a world out of pure color. There’s this one area, top right, where a darker pink sits right against the paler ground – it's not just a color change, it’s like a tectonic shift. The paint looks scrubbed in, like he was searching for the form rather than just laying it down. You can almost feel him pushing and pulling the pigment around. It’s a dance, a back-and-forth, a conversation between the artist and the canvas. It reminds me a bit of Sean Scully, but with a Mexican twist. It’s not about answers, it's about the questions, the hesitations, the glorious mess of making something.