Untitled 2019

This painting, an untitled work by Thomas Riesner, is a small but mighty thing, made with decisive marks of black and grey. I can almost see Riesner’s hand moving quickly, confidently, across the surface. The painting style reminds me of outsider art, and of artists like Bill Traylor, in its raw simplicity. Two figures emerge from the stark white background. One stands upright, a spiky halo framing its head, mouth agape in a silent scream. The other lies horizontally, almost floating, with three dark circles for a face. I wonder what's going on between these two? There’s a real urgency in the way the paint is applied, thick in some places, almost scraped away in others. It's a reminder that painting is not just about representation, but about feeling, about the body, about letting something come into being, and I love that.