Starkey #733 2005

Jack Armstrong made "Starkey #733" with paint, but I can't see when. It's a piece where process is everything; like a jazz solo, you sense Armstrong riffing, improvising, letting one thing lead to the next. The surface is worked, really worked. Thick globs of paint in red and black sit next to thinner, washy areas of grey, that create an incredible texture. You can almost see the artist moving around the canvas, attacking it from different angles. And look at the words! Scrawled names, places, fragments of thoughts, layered and partially obscured. It’s like the painting is thinking aloud. Take the big red blob in the bottom right. It’s messy, visceral, almost violent, but also kind of beautiful. It reminds me a bit of some of Cy Twombly’s more chaotic works, where he was just letting it all hang out. Art isn't always pretty, or neat, sometimes it’s about embracing the mess, the chaos, the stuff that’s hard to pin down.