Picture for a Lady 1976

Charles Garabedian made this, Picture for a Lady, using paint, probably acrylic. It’s a landscape—or at least it feels like one—done with these bold, earthy colors, all browns and blues, built up from flat shapes in a way that makes you think about how a painting comes together, bit by bit. I love how physical the painting is, with the paint sitting right there on the surface, almost like a collage. The texture is so present, you can almost feel the brushstrokes and the way the paint was dragged across the surface. Take that area in the center, with the darker patch and what looks like a bunch of sticks. You can see all the different layers and decisions Garabedian made, piling up to make this mysterious and kind of awkward form. Garabedian’s got this raw, direct approach that reminds me a bit of Philip Guston. Both of them aren't afraid to let the process show, to leave in the mess and the struggle. Art’s not about answers, it's about conversations and how we keep talking to each other across time.