Beginnings 2002

Helen Frankenthaler made this untitled painting with all kinds of loosey-goosey marks. Looks like maybe acrylic on paper? There's an incredible openness, with hazy blushes of color floating over a pale ground. The paint isn't really covering up the surface but stains it. The edges of the forms are soft and bleed into each other, and the whole painting feels airy, like a watercolor. Take that soft yellow circle near the top left. There’s a smaller ring of burgundy just below it. The edges of the yellow and burgundy softly bleed, giving the sense of forms dissolving and reforming. It's as if everything is in the process of becoming. There's a lot of space, not only in the composition, but also psychologically. I like her freedom; it reminds me of Joan Mitchell's spontaneous gestures. It shows that art is just one long conversation.