Vélez Blanco III 1995

Soledad Sevilla made Vélez Blanco III using oil paint on canvas. I love how the work emerges as the artist is making it. I can just imagine Sevilla starting out with a vague idea, and then, you know, going through trial and error to get to this finished painting. It's like she's figuring something out in real-time, right there on the canvas. The colour palette is so interesting, shifting from umber and brown to terracotta. It feels like she's playing with light and shadow, almost sculpting with paint. There's a meditative quality to the horizontal block of colour, as if she's trying to evoke a feeling or sensation rather than depict something specific. It reminds me of Rothko's colour field paintings, but with a more grounded, earthy feel. Artists are always in conversation with one another, picking up where someone else left off and pushing the boundaries of what painting can do. And in the end, that is where the embodied expression comes in, embracing ambiguity and uncertainty, and allowing for multiple interpretations.