Untitled 2006

Peter Joseph made this untitled painting with an incredible sense for how colour is a process. He’s taken just two colours, a muted grey and bright sky blue, and has created the feeling of soft tones emerging from the material itself. The colours are thin, almost stained into the canvas, and you can see the weave of the fabric showing through the paint. There’s a slight cloudiness to the grey especially; it’s not totally opaque and this brings depth and a sense of being submerged in colour. The blue also has this slightly grainy appearance, especially around the lower edge. It's as if Joseph wanted to get to the very essence of each shade. Joseph's painting reminds me of Agnes Martin, who had a similar talent for building subtle visual experiences with very simple means. Both artists teach us that less can definitely be more, and that art is a continuous experiment in how we perceive and experience the world.