Untitled 1975

This untitled painting by Sam Francis is like a glorious explosion on paper, probably made with ink or watercolour. It gives the impression of having come into being through trial, error, and intuition. I feel for Francis standing there with his brush and water, letting it all spill and run. I imagine he was thinking about the physicality of the medium, the way the paint behaves when it hits the surface, almost like a dance. Those splatters and drips? They communicate a sense of freedom and spontaneity, but also, maybe a little bit of risk. You can see how thin the paint is in the lighter sections. The way the colour seeps into the paper makes it look so fragile. It's like a visual conversation between the artist and the materials, echoing what other painters like Helen Frankenthaler were exploring at the time. It seems like these artists are inviting us to consider painting as a form of embodied expression, where ambiguity and uncertainty are not weaknesses but strengths.