Untitled 1961

Adja Yunkers made this Untitled piece; it's a world of black and white, built up with an almost frenetic energy. The marks are so immediate, like a snapshot of a thought in motion. There's this one area on the left, a sort of skull-like form emerges from the dark splatters. It's not precise, but suggested, a ghost in the machine. The paint isn't just applied, it’s almost thrown, dripped, coaxed. You can almost feel the artist's hand moving, responding to the ebbs and flows of the material. Yunkers reminds me of Gorky in his ability to wrestle feeling from abstraction, the sense of something just beyond reach. What I love about abstract art is its ability to invite you into a space of questions, without demanding an answer.