Artificial Flowers with Daggers 1974

Ilka Gedo made this painting, Artificial Flowers with Daggers, with what looks like oil and crayon, layering translucent washes over scribbled lines. It’s a garden, maybe, but definitely a construction – a made thing. I like how the paint seems to stain the canvas, almost like watercolor, and then she’s gone back in, scratching and drawing with a dark crayon. It’s not about hiding the process. You can see the ghosts of previous marks underneath, layers of seeing and revising. Take those little black shapes at the bottom, like stylized insects or maybe flowers. They’re so flat and graphic, but they sit in this ambiguous space that’s neither fully representational nor totally abstract. This piece reminds me of Philip Guston. He embraced a similar kind of messy, imperfect, and deeply personal mark-making. Like him, Gedo shows us that art doesn’t have to be perfect to be powerful. It's okay to leave the loose ends hanging out. In fact, that's where the real juice is.