Untitled 1948

Arshile Gorky made this untitled oil painting sometime in the 1940s. There's a real sense of digging in here, of trying to find a picture through the act of painting itself. The surface has this scrubbed, almost anxious feel, like Gorky is wrestling with the orange ground. Check out the forms – they're not quite figures, not quite objects, but something in between. That green patch, for example, is it a floating island? A strange, biomorphic shape? And the way he layers the paint, thin washes next to thick daubs, creates a tension that keeps the eye moving. It’s like a conversation, a back-and-forth between intention and accident. This piece reminds me a bit of Joan Miró's playful abstractions, but with a darker, more melancholic edge. Gorky's always felt like a bridge between Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism, and you can see that struggle and searching here, a restless energy pushing the boundaries of what a painting can be.