Untitled 1970

Alma Thomas made this watercolour painting on paper sometime in her later years. The washes of colour, those blues and oranges, they bleed into each other so beautifully, like colours melting in your mind. Looking closely, the paint is so thin, so transparent, that the white of the paper shines through, giving it this luminous quality. You can almost feel the water, the way the pigment moves and settles. Those dark, almost black lines, they feel like gestures, quick and sure. See how they cut through the softer colours, adding this rhythm, like branches against the sky. I love the way she lets the paint do its thing. It reminds me a little of some of Joan Mitchell’s looser works, that same sense of freedom, of letting go. But Thomas has her own voice, a lightness, that feels so unique. It's like she's inviting you to get lost in the process, to find your own way through the colours and shapes.