Rose Garden with a Green Background 1981

Ilka Gedo made this Rose Garden with a Green Background, and the way the surface is worked really grabs me; it’s all about the layers and the process. I love how the paint is applied, kind of scrubbed and porous, not trying to hide the hand of the artist but reveling in it. The colors are muted, like a memory, with greens and blues that create a hazy, dreamlike space. Look at the lower part of the image, where the roses are densely packed against the dark background. There's a tension between the flatness of the picture plane and the illusion of depth, a push-and-pull that keeps the eye moving. Each mark feels deliberate, a testament to the act of looking and responding. It makes me think of Agnes Martin, another artist who found beauty in simplicity and repetition. Ultimately, it’s this dance between control and chance, intention and accident, that makes art so endlessly fascinating.