The Blue Posts 1989

Patrick Caulfield made "The Blue Posts" with oil on canvas. It’s mostly green, a really particular green, punctuated by shapes of black, pink and lighter greens. I imagine Caulfield stepping back and forth, thinking about flatness and form, a push and pull of colour relations. He's playing with representation, but also refusing it, almost like a cartoon version of a room. I love the little beer glass, like a tiny jewel. He reduces everything to shapes but then this glass is so literal. I wonder if he put that in there to throw us off? To make us question what we are seeing, or how we are seeing? Caulfield's work reminds me of other painters who play with similar ideas, like David Hockney and even going way back to Matisse. Artists are always in conversation, you know, riffing on each other's ideas across time. This piece makes me think about how artists embrace ambiguity, inviting us to find our own meaning within the painting's surface.