Untitled (SMTTHOJ #1) 2001

Larry Bell made this painting, Untitled (SMTTHOJ #1), with a pretty limited palette of oranges, blacks, and yellows. It has this kind of hazy atmosphere, as if it's not quite coming into focus, being built up through trial, error and intuition. I wonder what it was like for Bell to make this. I imagine him, maybe a little frustrated, trying to get the colors to do something unexpected. There’s a kind of tension between control and chance here. I keep thinking about the surface—how the paint sits on it, thick in some spots, thin in others. Look at the drips, the way he let the paint run wild in places, and then reigned it back in with these decisive, dark strokes. Bell is known for his glass cubes, so it is fascinating to see how he can conjure three-dimensionality on a flat surface, building from something like a diagram into something atmospheric. When I look at it, I think about what other artists like Vija Celmins or Catherine Murphy are doing. It's as if these artists are in an ongoing conversation, pushing and pulling at the boundaries of what painting can be.