Trichromatic Flower Piece 1974

Richard Hamilton made this flower piece with who-knows-what, because the process is right there on the surface. The loose, washy marks let you see how the picture got made, and that's part of the fun. The colors here aren't trying to fool you. The reds of the flowers and the blues of the vase have this electric energy, a vibration in the way he puts them next to each other. Look at the lower left corner. See how the brown almost reads as a shadow, but it's also just… there. It's like Hamilton is saying, "Yeah, it's paint, so what?" Hamilton reminds me a bit of Philip Guston, especially the late work with the clumsy, honest marks. Both artists aren't afraid to let the messiness of life seep into their art. It's a conversation, really, about what painting can be, and how it can keep surprising us.