Decanter c. 1936

This is John Tarantino's "Decanter" and it’s painted on paper. I love the way that Tarantino has captured the light playing across the glass. You can almost feel the cool smoothness of it. It’s a funny thing, trying to fix something so ephemeral on a flat surface. I can imagine him squinting at it, trying to figure out how to translate the three-dimensional world into just marks on paper. Look at the detailing around the middle of the decanter. The repeated squares remind me of Josef Albers experiments with colour and form, where the interaction of simple shapes creates an exciting optical experience. The radiating lines give an Art Deco feel. It makes you wonder what other artists might have influenced Tarantino, or who he was in conversation with through his work. All artists are magpies. We build on what came before, remixing and reinterpreting. Painting is an ongoing exchange of ideas across time, with each generation inspiring the next.