Untitled 1965

This small, untitled oil painting was made by Luis Feito, a Spanish artist known for his abstract expressionist works. At first glance, the yellow in this painting can seem flat, a simple backdrop, but if you look closer you can see how the paint is thickly applied, almost like plaster. I think Feito was really interested in the physical presence of paint. Look at the bottom section of the painting, where the red, yellow, and black shapes sit on top of a dark ground. The brushstrokes are really apparent here, with each blob and dab of paint retaining its own identity. There is a tension between the flatness of the picture plane and the three-dimensionality of the paint itself. I see echoes of Guston in the colour palette and the process-oriented way Feito has applied the paint, and the way it asserts itself as a thing in itself.