Composition IIII 1963

Nikos Nikolaou made this painting, Composition IIII, and it's like a quiet conversation in browns and yellows. The colour feels very built up, layer by layer, allowing for subtle variation and depth. I’m really drawn to the way Nikolaou handles the paint here. It's not about showing off some kind of skill, but about letting the material do its thing. The brushstrokes in the background are loose and kind of scumbled, creating this earthy, almost tactile surface. The figures themselves are smoother, with gentle gradations of tone that give them a sculptural presence. There’s a sketchy quality to the drawing that makes it feel immediate, like it's been worked and reworked. The arms in the figure on the right are really interesting because they are so sketchily suggested, just little marks really, but they do so much work. The pared back quality reminds me a bit of Milton Avery. Both artists have a knack for distilling form down to its essence, for finding the poetry in simplicity. Like Nikolaou, Avery is less interested in perfecting a likeness, and more interested in capturing a feeling. It's like he’s saying, "Here's an idea, a suggestion, now you take it and run with it."