Hip, Hip, Hoorah! 1949

Karel Appel made Hip, Hip, Hoorah! with oil paint, smearing and daubing the surface with thick strokes. I imagine he approached it like a kid attacking a giant cake, all elbows and gusto. What I love about Appel's work is its raw, unapologetic energy. You can almost feel the artist's hand moving across the canvas, wrestling with the paint, pushing it this way and that. These figures seem to have emerged from some primordial soup of color and form. Look at the red figure in the centre, the way the colours blend. There's a kind of awkwardness, even a vulnerability, in their simplicity. Appel, like other artists, was in dialogue with those who came before him, like the Cobra group. But he was also pushing painting forward, showing us new ways to see and feel. I think he was asking, what can painting be? What kind of freedom can painting embrace? It’s a question that still resonates today.