Untitled 1953

Betty Parsons made this untitled painting with a gutsy palette of reds, greens, and yellows, as though she's making a garden not from life, but from feelings. I’m drawn to the way Parsons handled the paint – thick in some spots, almost scratched in others. Look at how the white and pink squiggles dance across the red rectangles, they feel like gestures, quick decisions, like the whole painting was maybe a day’s work, a burst of energy, captured wet into wet, full of the push and pull of color. And then there’s that yellow frame, or partial frame, that encloses the composition, a kind of boundary or limit which also amplifies the interior space. It reminds me a little of Milton Avery’s colour block paintings, where shape becomes form and the space is alive with feeling, not just representation. Ultimately, Parsons' painting feels like a conversation, both with herself and with the history of painting, always open, always in process.