Flowers No. 5 1975

Gebre Kristos Desta made this painting, Flowers No. 5, with some kind of medium that he really let loose with, throwing it on the canvas. The textures are crazy, right? Some parts are drippy and thin, almost like watercolor, while others are thick blobs of color, like he just squeezed the paint tube right onto the surface. Look at the way he mixed colors, too – that yellow splat bleeding into the black, and the orange one that looks almost like a face staring back at you. It's messy, but it's a beautiful kind of mess, like a garden that's been left to grow wild. There's something about the freedom in his brushwork that reminds me of Joan Miró, that same sense of playfulness. This isn't about painting pretty flowers, it's about the energy of growth, the chaos and beauty of nature doing its thing.